


Nightly Shenanigans (And Other Wild Adventures)

by BamSara



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: AU, F/M, It's ok Willow outsmarts him alot, Lengthy one-shots, Mutual Pining, Normal Willow, Not-So-Playful Banter, One-Shots, Shadow Wilson, Triumphant Wilson - Freeform, Wilson can be a jerk sometimes, inconsistent updates, playful banter, this sorta has a plot now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2019-10-07 05:30:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 71,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17359919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BamSara/pseuds/BamSara
Summary: With her best friend newly crowned as the Constant's ruler, Willow must not only work hard to survive the wilds of the island, but somehow deal with the Shadow King himself with an mix of corrupted memories.In other words: A Triumphant Wilson accompanies Willow through many adventures. For Science.





	1. New King, Old Flame

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot stop thinking of scenarios of Wilson trying to be this 'evil almighty shadow king' and Willow ruining those plans but also some feels mixed in with that. I have fallen into Triumphant!Wilson x Willow hell and there is no saving me now.

Imagine a world where the seasons are unforgiving and unpredictable, viscous giants roam the various biomes of the island you’re marooned on, filled with bipedal talking pigs, spiders as big as your head and hounds that hunt you down every week; 90% of the island’s inhabitants’s purpose is to seek and kill you and all you have to defend yourself is your girl scout ranked survival skills, a teddy bear, and a lighter.

Throw in a egotistical, demonic shadow, scientist wanna-be following and observing your every move and you have Willow’s current situation.

The firestarter pauses swinging her ax, letting it rest in it’s notch in the tree as she squints into the shade of the forest. She could burn it down, yeah, but the campfire’s flames always lasted longer, and she hates having to replant the cones after wards too. Still, they provide a nice, dark shade over her and the grounds.

Within the shade, the king himself stares back at her. And waves.

She braces herself, swinging out her lighter and flipping the fire to life with a click. Instinctual reflex. “What the hell? I thought you could only come out at nighttime!”

His gaze flickers to her lighter (as if that would actually do anything at this distance and time of day) and only shrugs. “There’s plenty of places I can be in the daytime. You do realize that light against a solid object creates a shadow, right?” He gives a small laugh, sharp teeth white even in the shade. She kinda wants to touch them, she’s never seen teeth like that except on the hounds.

The woman huffs, tucking away her lighter and retrieving the axe. He says nothing as he watches her strap a few logs to her backpack and begin to make the long trek back to camp. The silence from the sudden arrival is unnerving, so Willow turns back around, but the king is no longer in his former spot.

“Huh?” She hums, sighting her grip on the tool. “Where did you-?”

“Right here.”

Willow gasps in surprise and swings, sinking the axe into a nearby tree’s trunk and stumbling back as it holds itself in place. Her shadow is cast onto the tree from the sunlight, slightly bigger than her in perspective. It has eyes, and it blinks at her.

The shadow-her shadow, is what it was supposed to be- looks down at the axe embedded into the tree right at where the figure’s neck was. “That can’t hurt me.” He sighs, “And when I said I could be in every shadow, I meant all of them. Including yours.”

Willow grits her teeth and rises to her feet. “That’s really weird. Quit it.”

She expects him to protest but he simply hums and transfers onto another shaded surface, moving in between them as she walks. Her grip tightens on the backpack straps and mouth presses into a thin line. A quick glance from the corner of her eye tells her he’s keeping a respectful distance whilst remaining within range of following, hands clasped behind his back and shoulder’s squared, like a polite, gentleman.

Memories of the night’s darkness clawing at her, surrounding her with only her lighter’s tiny flame to protect her reminds her that the shadows were anything but gentle. She will not be fooled, not like before.

She tilts her head as she steps, her scrutiny in her glare meeting his calm one. “Can I uh, help you with something?”

The king disappears from the forest’s shaded treeline and sinks into her footsteps, falling back into her shadow. She can make out a movement of a polite smile and him shaking his head. “No, thank you for asking.”

Willow stops, hands on her hips and refusing to walk any closer to camp, though only a few yards away now. “That’s not what I mean’t” She snarled. There’s no way she was gonna waltz into camp and have this shadow pest hide away in the shade of her icebox or whatever. “I mean, why do you keep following me? What do you want from me?”

A expression morphs onto his face that she can’t quite tell if he’s offended or faking it. “Why, nothing at all!”

“Then why haven’t you buzzed off already?” Willow’s voice is coated with annoyance, arms crossed and foot tapping again the ground. The shadow glints at the action in faint amusement before listening to her continue. “Are you trying to kill me? Get the jump on me when night comes??”

He looks at her with genuine surprise this time, a hand flying up to his chest in a dramatic show of shock. “Of course not! As convenient as that would be-” The surprise melts into something more malicious for a split second, a sly grin on a once welcoming face and Willow considers setting the ground on fire where her shadow (his shadow now, she guesses) on fire before the expression settles on something more neutral. “-would be against the rules. You’re safe during the day, sunsets and whatever light you can stand to be around at night, I assure you.”

Willow does not look convinced. “You have my word.” He promises, tilting his chin up and doing a small bow. It’s a strange sight to see a shadow move like that. Then again, the shady figures of the day take a much more realistic form at night. She should be used to this by now.

She stares at him for a few seconds. Then, takes a deep breathe and spins on her heel. “Fine, whatever. I knew that already.”

“I would hope that you did, seeing as how long you’ve been here.” He teases. There’s a odd underlying tone to his voice but she ignores it, slugging off her bag as she enters camp and tossing to the side. The logs snap off the strap and roll off to the side as well as a couple stray berries fall out of the pack due to the rustle but it doesn’t matter. Willow stretches her arms out, limbs tired from the walking.

“I see you’ve made improvements.” He’s hiding in the shade of the crockpot now. It’s almost hilariously small. “Three more chests, the fire pit has been enlarged, the crockpot's bowl edges are only slightly scorched….” He mindlessly lists off the observations as if she wasn’t there, if only to write these notes down for further memory. The firestarter rolls her eyes and crouches down to sort through her pack, quietly noting the sun’s decent on the horizon.

The dusk falls and it falls quickly, a dimness falling over the sky. Willow feels the sun’s rays weaken on her, a chilly breeze blowing past and steals a quick glance at her ‘guest’. The suit he wears, pitch black and more elegant than anything else on the island is slowing gaining texture, the transparency of his form becoming more and more solid as light disappears. It’s a interesting, abiet slightly frightening process.

The shadow king feels her eyes burning into him but doesn't turn to meet them, instead, standing at the camp’s tent. There’s a strange look he has, something Willow has only seen before when he was particularly frustrated with the science machine (it sits at the corner of the camp now, collecting dust) or fiddling with some new gadget he’s found. Confusion. Curiosity.

“This isn’t your tent.” He finally speaks. There’s recognition in his sentence but it’s hardly present. Perhaps he doesn’t remember that it used to be his, or simply denying it. “It’s the only one. Where did yours go? ”

Willow freezes. How was exactly does she explain that she started sleeping in his tent since his disappearance in a weak attempt of self-comfort so often that her own began to fade and eventually collapse due to neglect and poor maintenance? Embarrassment did not suit her. “Rain messed mine up. So I burnt it.”

He watches the little twitch of her gaze to the side with interest. “And didn’t make a new one? I was told you were an expert at that.”

“Didn’t feel like it.” She snaps. “Besides, it’s not like your gonna use it.”

He opens his mouth like he’s going to retort but says nothing, settling to lean against the crockpot cross his legs. He’s almost fully formed, Willow realizes with startling alarm. Amber eyes scan over the horizon; the sun was almost fully gone.

She tosses the berries she was sorting to the side and grabs a few tufts of grass out from the pack. A pause in her movements, she looks at him. He’s still watching her, as observant as ever. A grin is present on his face. Patient.

Willow resists a shudder. “How much longer do I have?” She needs to know if she has time to build a worthy fire or just dive for the lighter.

He shakes his head with the smirk. “Telling you would be cheating.”

“You’re in my camp. At nightfall. Less than ten feet away from me right now.” She hisses. “It’s unfair. I deserve to know.”

He hesitates for a moment, pondering on her words. Then, flips his wrist upwards to his face. Shadow envelopes his wrists, a strange, looking watch secured on it. “Two minutes.”

Willow grabs a few logs from the scattered pile, tossing them onto the pit and throwing the grass haphazardly over them. She doesn’t look at him while she works, hands moving like lighting as she pushes the ashes out to start clean, the soot covering her fingertips in a soothing, black chalky coating. It smells like old burning, but she can’t focus on it right now.

“One minute.”

Soot covered hands reach for the lighter, gripping it tightly and clicking for the little switch. It sputters for a second, and Willow curses all the times she’s dropped her precious lighter hard to the floor either out of recklessness or otherwise.

“Thirty seconds.”

A tiny flame flares from it’s spark and Willow holds her breath, holding to it the fire pit's tinder. It doesn’t catch immediately like she had hoped.

“Twenty.”

She’ll be fine with just her lighter’s light. But the range was so small, so small that shadows can get even closer to you, not enough to touch you, to harm you, but just enough to whisper in your ear. It’s unnerving. She needs this fire. She needed it.

“Ten.” He sounds bored. She knows he’s not. “Nine. Eight. Seven-”

Suddenly, the grass begins to alight, flames starting to spread to the wood and now enveloping the fire-pit fully as it grew it a much higher heat. Willow lets out the breath she was holding, relief and joy flooding in from the flame’s presence, especially now that the sun’s rays were fully gone and the sky was full of stars, the forests around her camp shrouded in darkness save for the fireflies that danced at random.

The pryo sticks her hands in the flames and turns to the king with a prideful grin before it falls in confusion to find that, for the second time today, he has disappeared. Light from the fire washed over the spot he was once standing it.

“Six seconds.” His voice startles her and instinctively she whips around and punches. Her fists meet air, and also the raised brows of a amused man that sits safely in the shadow her own form casts once again. “One minute, fifty four seconds. Six seconds to spare. The previous record was two minutes and twelve seconds. Well done.” His grin is still there.

Willow huffs, retracting her hands and sticking it back into the fire. “Yeah, thanks for not helping by the way.” She mummers. The king sits casually, resting his elbows on his crossed knees and his cheek in his palm. It would be cute if he wasn’t all up in her bubble. “You look like you didn’t need any help.” He pokes.

She never asked for his help with the fire before. She wish she could now. Willow lets the soot on her hand evaporate in the flames, her skin cleansing in the fire. It’s a soothing motion. “I didn’t need you’re stupid count-down, either. Way to be dramatic.”

He takes her comment and laughs, keeping well within her shade and out of the fire’s reach. The light that reflects off of her and barely hits him allows her to see him entirely, though it’s not enough to see clearly and it doesn’t seem to affect him. He seems so real. So human.

“I’ve got my fire, and it’s not going out anytime soon.” The brunette interrupts his laughter with a bold, questioning tone. “So are you gonna leave me alone now? Or are you going to tell me why you’re suddenly so keen on following me around like uh…” She pauses to think. “A Chester. You’re acting like a Chester but without the eyeball stick part.”

He raises a brow at her wording, though says nothing to acknowledge it. “I’m just checking on my favorite test subject, is all.”

Willow frowns at the name. She’ll need to think of something stupid to call him too, something that will get on his nerves. He ignored her whenever she called him ‘vampire-shadowy face’. (Vampires are myths and unscientific he said. Except for vampire bats, which were real and totally scientific.)

“Favorite subject? I’m your only subject, as far as I know of.” Willow retorts, scooting around to face him fully. “Unless there’s other people here you haven’t told me about.”

She lets her hair fall over her shoulders and into the fire, flames trickling up her neck and sitting cross legged across from him. Her half-sitting in the fire casts a slightly larger shadow, and he adjusts to be more comfortable. Tiny, white specs in the dark trail to her skin where the fire casts an orange glow, but Willow misses it and it flicks back up to hers again. “There isn’t.” He says.

“Aside from you.” She refutes. It’s more of a statement than it is a question.

“That would be correct.”

It would seem that no matter what world she was sent to, there would always be a warden. “Why don’t you just go back to…wherever you go during the daytime?” She waves her hand around, a small flame following up her fingertips as she brings it upwards. The dark haired man conceals a flinch but remains silent. “I mean, I know you can see me wherever that is. What’s the difference?”

And in an odd turn of events, the shadow king looks strangely uncomfortable. “Research results are better collected up close than from a distance.”

It’s Willow’s turn to raise a brow. “And whatcha researching?”

He stares off into the darkness somewhere. “Stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Things. Science things.”

Willow hums, reaching for the berries she had previously discarded and letting them roast in her palm she held in the fire.. “Sooooooo, instead of, I don’t know; giving all the giants superpowers, experimenting on gobblers, using your new found ‘power’-!” (She makes a wild gesture at his body, to which he perks up and glances down at himself.) “To find us a way out of here…” She trails off for a few seconds. “You’re just sitting here. Annoying me.”

If there was a word to describe an expression that both looked cornered yet intimidating, he would have coined it. She decides to take his silence as an answer. A playful, softer feeling fills her. The fire is doing wonder for her nerves. “Well, obviously you’re lying. About the research part at least.”

“Lying?” He repeats. The firestarter shrugs, bringing her hands out of the fire and tossing up berries into the air, catching them into her mouth. She has terrible aim, one bouncing off her nose and onto his head.

The king blinks, a twitch tugging on the corner of his mouth. “And what, exactly, do you think the truth is?”

Willow leans forwards, smiling and winks. “I think you _missed_ me, Wilson.”

Wilson Percival Higgsbury, the clever scientist and newly crowned shadow king of the Constant, can hear the darkness’s creatures (and Willow’s) laughter at his expense as he huffs and picks a berry out of his hair.


	2. Forest Fires and Earthquakes

She accidentally burnt down an entire forest. Again.

It wasn’t her fault, really! She knows better by now, to keep the flames controlled and well within the confinement of the campfire, (which, with her doing is usually a bonfire by this point) where she can sit safety complain her woes to no one in particular. It’s a special routine to her now, one that the ‘real world’ would have never allowed her to have.

But being alone on this hellish place was….rough, to say the least. It was better with a partner; not only easier to survive with a another pair of hands but there’s also this whole mental drain of  constantly having to fear for your life when you’re not starving to death. The bark of the hounds every few weeks, the deerclops that can materialize ice from the snow alone, cradling a lighter in the dark to keep you from being torn to shreds from a former friend. Ya know, some pretty heavy stuff.

That’s why Willow doesn’t mind giving herself some slack, (Well, maybe a lot of slack) when the lighter finds it’s way to a dry branch and dozens of trees are burnt to the ground.

It’s beautiful, the way the fires envelope her and make her feel safe. Warm. The shadow creatures that followed her previously can’t touch her in the flames. She revels in it like a calm cup of tea while the forest fire blazes until there’s nothing left but charcoal covered remains.

Then it strikes her that she’s going to have to replant all these tree’s before next winter comes or she’ll have no wood to fuel the campfire back at base.

“Now, was that really the brightest idea?”

Willow turns her head from where she sits, (A particularity scorched spot of grass, directly under the sun’s dimming light.) and finds her mood interrupted. He’s here, settled himself in the shade of a boulder, though from the sun’s position on the horizon it’s clear that dusk will soon be settling.

Wilson looks over the field of burnt trees and sighs. “You never change, do you?”

The firestarter glares at him. “Could you say the same?”

The shadow king raises a brow and a fakes a look of hurt. “Touche.” He says, but she ignores him and gets to work, knocking down trees and taking the pine cones that happened to survive the onslaught of the fire. It’s easy work, if not tedious. Just make a tiny dent in the ground (nice and fertile now that the ash as seeped in) and throw a pine cone down. It won’t be long before it’s a fully mature tree again, time worked strangely in this realm.

She’s putting the last one in the ground, wiping the dirt off onto her skirt and adjusting her backpack over her shoulder. The field is covered in tiny dirt mounds-soon to be saplings. Wilson stares at her from afar. There’s no tree’s to shade him.

Willow takes the opportunity to mock him. “For a 'king', you can’t really traverse you’re own ‘kingdom’ as you please, can you?” She jests. Said ruler simply crosses his arms and looks at her from his position. His mouth is pressed into a thin line, but not angry. Just thinking.

“Despite limited mobility, being king still has it’s advantages.” He leans off the rock, just within the boulder's shade. “Be careful with who you tease too, not everyone appreciates your type of humor.”

She scoffs at him. “Whatever. I’m hilarious and you know it.” The tone sounds mean but there’s a smile on her face that his eyes trail to. His gaze lingers, then, waves her comment away with noncommittal noise.

“Hilarious? Maybe, but the word I would use is destructive.” The way he speaks is akin to a professor to a student, and it irks her. “Or did all those trees deserved to be burned to a crisp? Some of them had families, you know.”

Images of treeguards in stereotypical family settings complete with baby treeguards (would those be called saplings?) appear in her head. Willow doesn’t know if she should feel bad or laugh, but it ends up being a mixture of both. “Maybe if you’d keep your little shadowy pets away from me I wouldn’t have to set this whole place ablaze.”

“Me? Set them on you?” He repeats, ending his sentence with a laugh. “I didn’t do a thing, you see. You attracted them on your own accord with your…charm.” He grins.

She glares at him. “Is that a nice way of saying I went crazy?”

“If you’d like to take it such.”

Willow opens her mouth to retort but pauses mid-breathe. A reddish tint falls over the land. The sky is darkening, she’ll have to make this quick before dusk fully falls.

“Well! Love to stay and chat, but uh” She spins on her heel and gets a running start, tossing a rude gesture with her free hand over her shoulder. “-gotta get home before curfew. See ya!”

She’s giggles to herself when she glances back to see him left alone giving her a look of annoyance. Then, in a flash of shadows he’s gone, and Willow finds herself running faster. She’s halfway across the biome now, she thinks. She’ll get home and light that fire, laugh at him from her spot in the pit and throw pebbles at him. It’ll be great.

The firestarter is so caught up in her daydream she doesn't see him materialize in front of her. She ends up running straight into his chest and bouncing off, just barely able to adjust herself to prevent herself from hitting the ground.

Willow stares up at him and frowns. “Rude!” She huffs, to which the shadow king smiles, folding his arms behind him. (They were slightly out in front, as if he was going to catch her if she fell, she realizes. But that’s ridiculous.)

“Apologies.” He raises a semi-transparent hand up in a peaceful gesture. “I just wanted to walk you home, you see. It’s unfit for a lady such as yourself to be walking alone in the dark.” He's mocking her at this point.

The old-fashionedness of the whole excuse made Willow want to both laugh and puke at the same time. “I can handle myself, thank you very much.” She retorts. “And _what_ , exactly are you supposed to be protected me from? Yourself?”

Wilson grins. She decides to take that as his answer. Fixing her pack and walking the rest of the way, she allows him to walk beside her. Or float. She can’t really tell and she doesn’t care enough to stop and check anyways. She’ll allow him to exist beside her. Yeah.

The camp is the same as she’d left it, the smell of her last failed attempt at the crockpot, (turns out you can’t boil the evil out of monster meat) and Chester sleeping, snuggled up to his eye-bone next to the log she uses for seating. He perks up when he sees her, unmoving from his spot but panting and barking as she approaches.

“Hey buddy!” Willow coo’s, tossing her backpack to the side and giving him a little pat on the head. “How ya doing, fluffy butt? Been watching the camp for me?”

Chester jumps up and down, completely ignorant to the second figure that stood beside the one petting him. With a tiny glance she could see him eyeing the dog-chest with a sense of curiosity-or was it familiarly?-before shaking his head. “You neglect him. He should be taken out more, not confined to the base.”

Willow rolls her eyes. “Every time I take him out with me he just gets cornered by the hounds.” She says matter-of-fact, taking a few items from Chester’s inventory and placing them in her own pack, exchanging them with a few gems. “I hate seeing him die.”

The king quietly peers down at her. “Why? He’s a loyal companion, he’ll always return.” He hums, feeling a tiny tick on his leg. Blinking, his gaze follows a pebble as it rolls away, looking up to see Willow holding a handful of them. She looks annoyed. “Unlike someone I know.” She mummers.

Wilson nearly flinches. Nearly. “You wound me. Truly.”

She doesn’t respond to him, instead fiddling with a crudely made headlamp tying it to the side pocket of her pack. It’s been modified, he realizes, with a few more pockets made of pig skin and threads of silk. He briefly wonders if she learned that from her girl scout years as well.

It takes Wilson a moment to process that she’s leaving the camp, Chester barking as she moves. As if sensing his hesitance, she pauses and waits for him to follow. She’s holding an unlit torch, he notes. A teddy bear is cradled in her other arm. He can’t remember it’s name.

“It will be night soon.” Wilson warns. It’s just stating the obvious, the reddish tint that washed over them was now turning into a purplish hue of the sunset’s end. “Where might you be heading off to?”

“Caves.” She says, gesturing off into a general direction. There’s a sink hole that way if he remembers correctly. Though, he can’t be sure if the memory is from creating this world or…experiencing it. Huh.

He breaks from his thoughts as she stares at him, furrowing her brows at his apparent silence. “Well?” Willow voices, “Are you coming or not?”

He blinks. “Do you want me to?”

“I kinda expected you’d follow me either way.”

She certainly had that little detail right. Still, it’s the thought of an option that counts. Wilson straightens his figure and gives a quick nod, the grin returning as he finds himself beside her again. She gives him a weird look, but says nothing as they walk. “It’s not very far. We’ll just have to dodge the bats to jump in though.”

She will, not him. She might have forgotten that bit, though shows no sign of realizing her mistake in speech. It’s a repeated mistake, he notes to himself, that she will often refer to ‘we’ in things that she does alone. If anything, the most involved he’ll ever be is commenting scientific observations on the sidelines.

Like the time she ate an abundance of cookies she managed to bake in order to spite him and ended up with a upset stomach. (“I would have shared them with you if you weren’t like, totally evil.” She says right before she pukes.) He enjoys listing off her side effects under the safe shade of a tree.

“Wilson?” Willow kicks dirt up onto his pants leg. He’s fully formed now, he realizes. She’s lit a torch, standing a distance away from him. “I’m going down.”

He watches her jump down the hole, the sound of her shoes hitting the stairs further down and the clack as she journeyed deeper. Briefly, the shadow king gazes up at the sky. It’s night now, the stars are out. The darkness invigorates him.

Willow finds the bottom of the stairs and pauses, looking around. It’s pitch black, and if her eyes weren’t tricking her then the torch had a smaller radius of light then it did on the surface. A touch of pity filled her for the flame the torch bared.

“Are you really prepared to be down here for very long?” Wilson’s voice resounds from beside her. She isn’t startled this time, he had a habit of not announcing his presence right away. “A single torch won’t last you very long down here.”

“Yeah, I know that. Which is why I’ve got this!” She reached her hand up to atop her head and flicks a switch, the circle of light immediately expanding. The shadow king barely has enough time to slink backwards into the dark before it hits him, sending a growl in her direction. “A bit of warning would have been nice!”

Willow laughs at him. “What? Spooked ya?” The torch dies in her hand and she lets the burnt stick fall to the ground, instead bringing up the bear and making it’s arms move in little motions at him. Wilson watches it, eyes flicking from the bear back to the firestarter. “It’s not fire, but it’ll keep the boogie man away so I think it’s pretty nifty. Right, Bearnie?”

Ah, so that was it’s name. “Did you make that?” He questions from his spot in the shadows, doing his best to ignore the mockery he’s receiving from a stuffed animal. “It doesn’t look like something you’d be interested in.” If it didn’t include fire, it usually didn’t.

“No, but I found it in your chest with a bunch of diagrams so I figured it out.” Oh.

She pushes past him, (or really, he steps away and keeps his distance from the light shining off of her headlamp. Floating with his arms crossed and looking cross himself suit him just fine.) and walks further into the dark.

The bear stares at him from her arms. It must make her feel better being down here.

“Nitre, nitre, nitre….” She hums under her breathe, digging through the underbrush that decorated the cave’s ecosystem. She feels him watching as she perks up at finding a yellow-tinted rock, stuffing it inside her pack and continuing the search. A whistle sounds from behind her.

“First, you’ve burnt down a forest. Now, you’re making gunpowder, I presume?” He flies to some part of the darkness her eyes can’t adjust to see into now, his voice echoing off the chambers of the cave. It would be eerie, but it only serves to irk her.

“I’ll throw more rocks at you.” She warns, an equal sense of play in her voice. Her hand curls around a collection of pebbles as a laugh resounds from the dark. The shadows taunt her. “You can certainly try.”

Pulling her arm back, Willow hurls a couple pebbles into the dark, a faint clatter of them hitting the ground whistle some flew off the cliff’s edge. Her smile turns into a pout before the very faintest of shock runs up her spine as a voice echoes to her right. “Missed.”

The firestarter turns her head, (and the headlamp’s light shifts it’s focus as well) to the spot where Wilson hid oh-so-nonchalantly behind a berry bush. Shadow’s disperse and travel away from the radius, back into the safest distance. She groans. “The bush hiding trick is SO old!”

The scientist has a smile filled with an innocence she can’t see. He finds how her laugh bounces off the cave’s wall an interesting sound. “Old! Yet effective!”

Willow grabs another rock, sticking her tongue out in a gesture she knows he hates and aims for the general direction of his voice. “Let me try again.” She yells, “No tricks this ti-”

A deep rumbling interrupts her. She feels her legs buckle and the ground move beneath her feet. “That sound probably doesn’t mean good things.”

Her vision was shaking, the sound of rocks hitting the cave floor echoed through as it rained flint and stone. Out of the corner of her eye she saw nitre fall from the ceiling only to shatter into useless little pieces, smaller than the pebbles she once held, against the ground as the earth shuddered. Shame, she could have really used that.

Wilson says something but his voice is nearly over taken by the roar of the earth. “I would take cover, if I were you.”

“This isn’t my first earthquake, ya dunce!” She yells over the rumble. Rocks nearly hit her as she moves drops the backpack, (she’ll get it after the earth stops shaking her around) to move easier to dodge it, Bearnie still secured in the other grip. “I can handle it!”

Then, as if the world itself was to spite her, a rock fell atop her head, shattering the headlamp’s lens.

Willow scrambles for her lighter in the sudden darkness, her playful joy from before now replaced with a flood of fear as roaring continued, and quite aware of the fact that _he_ knew exactly where she was. Her hands find her skirt pocket and fish out the device flicking it’s arm quickly.

A tiny, puny but welcoming flame spurs to life, and Willow screams when Wilson’s face pops up in front of her own.

The scientist takes a few steps back and adjusts to the light. He blinks, the cave is still in the last stages of the earthquake, but he can hear her cursing at him over the rumbling. “Good save.” He sounds odd, like one when just broken from a day dream.

“You stinkin’ bastard!” She yells at him, although trying to keep steady on her own two feet. She envies his ability to just kinda float there. “You scared the shit out of me!”

Scaring her was probably not what she needed to be worried about him doing to her. Still, it peeved her off. Wilson’s silence didn’t help her mood either. The firestarter stumbles forward, swinging the lighter towards him, causing him to back away even further. “Personal space? Ever heard of it?” She makes sure to put the lighter all up in his bubble to make her point.

Even with the light nearly a foot away, she can still feel him hesitate. White pinpoints in the dark look to her helmet. “You’re headlamp broke.”

“Yeah, thank you Captain Obvious!” She groans, tossing the headpiece down to the ground in frustration. “Stupid thing! Fire never would have done that!”

“You should really put that back on.”

Willow shuffles to stay upright on her feet, glares into the darkness and yells. “Why the hell would I do that?”

Suddenly, pain spreads from the top of her head, and the view is shifting. The earthquake brings down more debris from the ceiling as Willow herself falls to the ground, her lighter loosed from her hands and rolling away from her. The world might hate her after all.

She sees a rock roll away from her, a bit of blood on the side and curses all rocks ever existed before she blacks out.

* * *

When she awakens, the world is no longer shaking and there’s a missing comfort in her hands. A weight is on her chest.

Willow groans, bringing a hand up to her aching head. Her fingers run through her hair and slide across dried blood, the smell of it evident in her nose. She was alive though, so there’s that.

“He started moving when you passed out, you know.”

Her eyes fly open, sitting up straight and glancing around quickly. She’s at the camp now, the sun rise just barely over the horizon, sending out a light to make everything just barely visible.. Her lighter is tossed haphazardly to one side of her, her bag to the other. Chester rolls off her stomach from his spot, awoken from his slumber.

Wilson sits to her side. He doesn’t look at her when she gets up, intently studying the bear in his hold. “Just started moving, all on his own. I’m not sure if he was trying to dance with me or fight me.” He hums. “What science made him move?”

She gawks at him for a moment, before lunging forward to grab it. The shadow king holds it far from her place away from her. “Give him back!”

He lets out a tired sigh. “Good morning to you too.”

When she reaches out for a second time he lets her have it, watching her curl Bearnie up to her chest. Wilson looks out to the horizon in some poetic manner and frowns at the rising sun, flicking up his wrist to count the seconds on his watch.

They sit in silence for a moment before he stands, and Willow realizes he’s beginning to become strongly transparent. Briefly, she sticks out her finger towards him, extending her arm towards his shoulder. Her finger nail barely brushes him and he pulls away.

There’s a mix of confusion and concern in his features. She wonders why he didn’t kill her why she was out cold. (Unless the rule of sleeping in the tents also extended to when you get K-Oed by a falling rock) Still, even if that was the case it didn’t explain how she got above ground.

“Do take more care, next time.” The mischievous grin that he usually adorns is not there. “Try not to burn down any more forests.”

Willow perks up, reaching out an arm but the shadows are already dispersing. “Wait! How did I even-” Light is washes over the spot he was once in. “….get here.”

Her hand falls back down. He looked…conflicted.

Chester barks at her from her side, stumbling over her knees and taking place on her stomach. It’s enough to break her out of staring at his absence and Willow shakes her head, running a hand threw his fur.

She takes a deep breathe, rolling her shoulders and letting her mind process. A touch to her head tells her that it’s still tender, but probably nothing a couple of spider glands can’t fix. She’ll need a good fire, she thinks, curling Bearnie close to her chest.

“I hope you punched him real good.” She tells the bear.“ Right in the ankles.” With her thumbs, she makes his arms do little punching motions and smiles.


	3. Floods and Lava

Ah, Spring. Wilson’s second favorite season, next to Winter, of course.

So much change happens during this time shift; the beefalo go into heat, the bees become more productive in their honey-making (and aggressive, the stingy little buggers!) and the air becomes hotter and hotter. Not quite summer’s heat, but the sun’s rays are harsher now than they were in the last season, casting darker, clearer shadows against objects for him to slink and hide into. Uncomfortable, being so near bright light, but useful.

Though, even better than the shadows were rainy days.

Wilson sniffs the air, smelling of blooming flowers and pollen. Its nice when clouds overtake the sky and blott out the sun. It’s not enough to fully form in the absence, no, but he can safely walk or float about. The rain halfway phases through him, and any droplets that do manage to hit him slide off his suit without so much as leaving a wet spot.

Little perks of being king, he guesses, floating a few feet above ground level. The sound of sloshing footsteps grow nearer to him, cursing and groaning of someone in absolute misery. When the brunette catches sight of him observing her struggle, he cannot stop the grin that crawls on his face when she shakes her fist.

“WILSON, I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!”

Another perk of being King: the ability to experiment new things into the constant. He’s decided to see how flooding would work out.

Willow is damp, not quite soaked from the rain, (thanks to her rain-hat, he wonders if she took that out of his chest as well.) though she’s visibly upset, irritation coming off of her in waves as she feebly lifts her feet out of the water pooling on the ground. It’s up to her ankles now. He can tell she hates it.

“Flooding? Seriously?!” She yells, “You couldn’t have thought about something way more awesome?? Like making it rain FIRE instead?!”

The scientist lowers himself just enough to hear her better, still high above the ground. “You should be grateful! All of your crops will be well watered and prime!” He taunts her. “You were well overdue for a bath, anyways.”

Maybe it’s the water running down her chin but it almost looks like she’s about to spit at him. Her tongue comes out instead, scrunching up her nose in disgust and anger. “You know I hate bathing in water! You know that!”

He shrugs and looks nonchalantly into the distance. Like a jerk, Willow thinks. “Oh, I do.” He says, “But surely you understand that this is an opportunity I cannot pass up?”

The firestarter lifts her foot out from the water, (It’s rising steadily now, she can’t see the color of the grass with how murky and muddy it is.) and shakes it, bits of gunk come out of her foot and she revels in it before almost losing her balance and putting it back down again with a slosh. It’s gross, oh so gross.

“What? The opportunity to ruin my week?!” She screeches. Her face is flushed a slight pink color from the frustration. He lets himself think it’s endearing, but only for a moment.

“The opportunity for an experiment, you see!” He claps his hands together, his smile stretching into almost wild look. “Sure, this world could rain. Why could it rain for many days and yet not flood? Where does the water go? Into the ocean, sure but realistically speaking that would raise the sea level and come back onto the island-”

“I don’t care about any of that!” She haphazardly flails her arms around in an attempt to shake herself dry. It’s futile, but it’s an amusing sight to see. “Everything is wet! Everything is cold! I hate it!”

A tiny, small voice in the back of Wilson’s mind whispers that he should feel bad about doing this but he pays it no mind. “It’s just precipitation.” He watches her shuffle about in her spot until she realizes that water was everywhere and there’s no real dry spot for her to stand in.

“It can’t hurt you, unless you’re a robot I suppose.” He laughs at himself. Robots? Science-fiction, certainly. Maybe that will be his next experiment? “Just be a good lab rat and do-” He swishes a hand in the air, “-whatever you do for survival in this season. You’ll be fine probably. If you’re so bothered simply climb a tree and wait-”

“Chester and his eyebone were _swept away_ , you prick!” She screams. “I’m out LOOKING for him!”

He pauses. “Oh. well. um…some causalities are to be expected in the pursuit of research.”

To be complete honest, the image of the dog-chest floating away along with his precious bone was a comical thought, even more so when he remembers that Chester would not have done anything to prevent it. Just him and his bone swept away by the tide, how funny. At least he’s incapable of drowning. He thinks, at least.

Willow runs a hand down her face, hands slick with water and huffs. She could handle the rain, whatever. The rain hat was doing it’s job, (mostly) but the flood? It was rising, quickly now, almost to her knees and panic was starting to overcome the bitterness. Shadow creatures haven’t appeared yet, but they would be soon. She can feel it.

Speaking of which, she turns up to glare at the king, who ponders down at her safely from his spot in the air. An idea emerges. “Are you like…solid right now?”

Wilson blinks. “I’m what?”

“Solid.” Willow repeats. “Like, you’re actually here. In a real form. Enough to touch.”

It takes a moment for the king to respond, briefly looking down to his body as if preparing for some sort of insult or joke towards him. It would not be the first time she’s commented on this. “I believe so. Why?”

Quickly, Willow’s hand shoots out and grabs a hold of his ankle and Wilson freezes. “Don’t you dare-”

She ignores him and launches herself upwards, using one hand to hook around his suit tie and the other to push herself up off his leg. The king flails in shock for a moment, inwardly panicking as the firestarter grabs his belt buckle and uses it to hoist herself even higher. “Unhand me!”

He swings his arm out to throw her off but she uses it as a latch instead. “No!”

“This is _very_ improper!”

Her torso is on his and his mind goes temporarily blank. Willow does not seem bothered by the contact. “I don’t care!”

“Get off!”

She swings herself around just in time to miss him push her, the two scrambling in the air for seconds until she stops struggling and clasps around him tightly. Wilson feels her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her legs around his midsection and the her breathe against his neck as she buries her head in his back.

And just like that, Willow has climbed and wrapped around the Shadow King alike a koala bear.

His muscles are tense and she can feel it but doesn’t acknowledge it. For a few seconds it’s just awkward silence and the sound of rain hitting the flooded ground. Wilson tries to relax his shoulders, and sighs. “I cannot believe the audacity of you.”

“Yeah, well.” She snivels into his suit and he briefly wonders if she’s going to get snot on it. “You started it.”

He kinda wants to slam himself in to the water just to spite her, but the gentleman side of him wouldn’t allow such a gesture. The same side is almost quite unnerved by the feeling of her wrapped around him like her life depended on it. In some sense, it did.

Which brings a thought to mind. “Do you realize how dangerous this is, right?” He asks, her, turning his head to speak so his cheek brushes against the top of her hair. Thankfully, they’re faces are not close as she keeps her own down.

“You could get yourself killed.” He feels like he does not need to explain how.

“It’s technically daytime.” She mummers, voiced muffled against the fabric of his suit. “Can’t get me. Against the rules. You said so yourself.”

“….You could also fall.”

Her arms and legs squeeze him in response and Wilson regrets saying anything. It’s not uncomfortable, at least not physically. It feels like if one was to give a piggy back ride, or a hug almost. When was the last time he received a hug? Did he ever get one at all?

Did the darkness count? The way it surrounds him at night, soothing, powerful. But not physical, no. The darkness could not hold you, not in comfort at least. The shadow creatures don't touch, they can bite and claw but not hold. He can, though, despite being the same as they are. Though, it was harder to touch things nowadays, what with being made of shadows and all.

Still, it’s a interesting thing, he thinks, as his mind tries to shift through memories folding in and out of his mind. His mother, (mother? did he have parents?) appears in one of them, sharing his eyes. They must be his, he thinks. They looks just like his own. Or, maybe they did. He can’t recall what color his eyes were before being transformed on the throne.

Amber? No, that can’t be right. Though it seems familiar though. Warm, comforting, just like a hug. Though it’s not a hug because the scientific definition for such is a physical grasp usually between two people, usually one of affection-

“um, HELLO?” Oh, how he does wish she would care to be quieter when she speaks directly next to his ear. “Earth to scientist? Helloooooo…”

Wilson resisted a frown. It was unsuccessful and his mouth turned into one anyways. “What is it?”

“You looked really zoned out there.”

“I was thinking about science.”

“Sure you were.” She brushes him off, head resting on his shoulder. It’s a notion that feels familiar, but he manages not to drift off again. Daydreaming mid-conversation was quite rude. “I asked if you could take me to the lava pits.”

Oh, he had forgotten about those. He wonders if the flood water cooled and solidified the lava inside. “And why, exactly, should I do that?”

Willow blows a pieces of hair out of her face, (It brushes up against his nose and he instinctively cranes his neck away in embarrassment.) and glares at him. “You’ve ruined my day. And my camp. And lost Chester. You owe me one ride to the desert pronto.”

Wilson’s mouth presses into a thin line and crosses his arms. Difficult, considering her hold around his mid-section but he manages to look cross regardless. “I do not owe anything. You’re aversion to water is certainly not my problem.” He teases. “If you want to get there so badly, you can swim there yourself.”

“I’m not getting off until there’s lava under me.”

He falters. “How lazy of you. I should throw you off.”

She looks at him with knowing gaze, there’s smile on her face despite the rain. “Nah, you wouldn’t.” She taunts him. He has half a mind to forgo to simply ease himself into the water, and her by default and laugh at her expense. But she’s right, and he would do no such thing.

So with that, Wilson begins his float to the desert biome.

Willow keeps her hold on him as they move along, the scientist trying to move quickly through the trees and hills. It would be minute, and while he could certainly just demateralize and appear there, the firestarter attached to him would not travel with and fall to the watery ground below.

Even if he escaped now, he’s certain she would not let him forget it next time he came around for observation. The firestarter once crafted thermal stones and let them sit in the fire for the sole purpose of running at him in the dark with them outstretched. Women, terrifying creatures, the lot of them.

Mid-memory he hears her take a sharp intake of breath of panic, her attempt at adjusting a better hold only to slip from the slick of the rain. Without thinking his hands come around to support her legs, hoisting her up so she could rest safely. The first thought that comes to mind is that she weighs near nothing. (Has she been eating well? Or was that the shadow infused strength at work?)

The second thought was that their potion was a bit more domesticated. And awkward. “Oh.” Willow sounds out and he’s too hesitant to look back at her expression. “Thanks for that.”

“Of course.” Why didn’t he just let her fall? It wouldn’t have been his fault. “We’re almost there, anyways.” He curses his old habits. The ‘old Wilson’s habits’. Whoever.

He can almost feel her relief as the desert biome comes into view. The trees disappear around them and the rain has lightened to hardly a drizzle at this point. Wilson scans the area and makes a note in the back of his mind that the desert is mostly unaffected by his experiment, still as dry and barren as ever with no signs of flooding.

Willow takes a deep breath and heaves. She was still soaked with rain, droplets falls off of her onto Wilson to whom remains completely dry. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t jealous of that little perk.

He approaches the lava pits then stops a few feet away and Willow is about to ask why before she realizes; cloudy day or not, the lava emits a nice, warming light. Something too risky for him to get near, meaning she’ll have to walk over there herself. It’s fine, only she wished her socks didn’t have so much gunk in it. She was really hoping to avoid sloshing in them any more than she had to.

She’ll just have to suck it up. The lava pit was right there, anyways. With a stretch, she loosens her grip. “Put me down and I’ll just-”

The hands around her thighs tighten. “Not so fast.”

Her heartbeats stutters, in fear or something else she can’t tell but she’s glaring at him all the same. “What do you mean, ‘not so fast.’?” Willow scoffs, lowering her voice in the last sentence for mockery. “What are you, a super villain? Put me down so I can dry off already.”

“Actually.” There it is, that grin has appeared. “You owe me a favor.”

She gawks at him. “Favor?” She repeats. Wilson thinks for a moment before correcting. “An experiment, to say. Harmless, I assure you.”

“Why should I agree to it?”

“You’re using me as a taxi.”

“You flooded the Constant!”

They lock into a staring contest for a few seconds, a frown on Willow’s face as a smirk on his. Wilson, either now bothered by their lack of distance (or doing quite a good job at hiding his fluster) watches her as her eyes dart from his, to the lava pits, to the ground, back up to his, cheeks flushing a hint of pink before she huffs and turns her head away.

The scientist will dare say he’s won this time. “Fine, ” She starts, “What’s the favor?” She hopes it’s nothing stupid like the time he asked her to try and cook in a cold fire pit. (The results were frozen food and a hungry Willow.)

Wilson moves slightly, holding his arms slightly out. One arm reaches out to move her. “Hold still.”

Her face flushes and hisses at him, swatting his hand away. It briefly reminds him a of cat perched on a person’s shoulder refusing to be removed. “What are you getting at?” She demands.

He fakes a look of innocence. “You trust me, don’t you?”

“Not really.”

The king resists rolling his eyes, and shifts an arm around her, not quite pulling her forwards but open enough for Willow to catch onto his body language. He holds out his hand, and she stares at it warily. “May I?”

Such a mannerable man. She doesn’t trust it at all. Still, she takes it and finds herself being swiveled around in one swift motion, one hand going under her legs and the other beneath her back. It takes her a moment to process that Wilson is holding her bridal style.

“This is it?” She laughs. It a good feeling, after all the rain did nothing but make her miserable. But the look of them now was so ridiculous she couldn’t help it. “This is you’re ‘experiment’?” She snorts.

Wilson shrugs and she can feel him float slightly through the air. “Not quite. Not really an experiment, per say.” He says. Willow stops in her giggles when she see’s his smile is unfaltering and unnerving. She can’t tell if it’s playful or deceitful. Probably both.

She wants to twist and see if she’s able to jump down from this height but his grip prevents her from even doing that. It was the middle of the day, so she was in the clear. The firestarter ponders for a moment. She doesn’t feel like she’s in any particular danger or anything…

“If this isn’t an experiment, then what is it, then?” She asks.

Wilson’s grin stretches to the edge of his face, sharp and mischievous. He leans down with a lower, quieter voice. “ _Revenge_.”

He drops her.

Or really, gently tosses her directly into the lava pit.

Less than two seconds later, a perfectly fine, well dried off Willow emerges from the surface of lava and takes a sharp breath, the sound of Wilson laughter echoeing in her ears. “You jerk!” She yells, but a smile is breaking through on her face. The sudden lava was a welcome feeling. “I thought you were going to do something horrible!”

The shadow king has retreated to the safe distance from the molten’s light, snickering at the woman dusted pieces of lava rock from her hair and clothes. “I did say I would throw you!”

“Ungentlemanly!” Willow points an accusatory finger at him. “You’re supposed to be super mannerable!”

“And you’re the one to judge?” He clutches his side and lowers to the ground, letting himself sit a distance away as she crawls out of the pit. Willow inhales the smell, (like ash and charcoal, but something else too.) and lets the smile on her face stick like paint.

A couple of giggles escape her. “Okay, maybe I earned that one.” She admits. “Besides. Lava baths are the best baths. WAY better than water.”

The shadow king shakes his head, gotten his breath back from his bout of laughter. “Not quite what I’d prefer, but to each their own, I suppose.”

Willow snarks at him. “You should try it sometime. In fact. I should pull you in here right now.”

His smile does not fall but alert appears on his features. “If you even so much as approach me with those grabby hands of yours again I’ll take custody of Chester and make him a nice little dog bed next to my thone.” He threatens.

To his words, Willow seems to freeze. It’s a few seconds before he realizes what he’s said. “Oh right, you still haven’t found him yet.” He muses out loud much to her disgruntlement. “No, thanks to you.”

Wilson makes a non-committal noise and decides to mark this weather experiment up as a failure. No matter, there will always be more. The potential for science was near limitless in the realm and he would not be disheartening by few number of a faulty tests. He’ll just need to think of some more ‘compatible’ for the current test subject.

With the last of the molten rock gone from her form, Willow sinks to her knees and runs her hands through the lava like water, it’s rippling and gooey to her touch. Not fire, not flickering or many colors, but warm and comforting. Liquid fire, basically. It’ll do in a pinch.

“I hope you feel bad about it.” She huffs, and Wilson pulls away from his notes to listen to her complaints. “He’s probably out there, all alone, cold and with wet, gross fur.” She nags, “He’s probably going to get sick when all of this is over.”

Wilson waves her off. “Nonsense. Chester is incapable of getting sick. Illness cannot apply to most of the creatures on this island anyway.”

She opens her mouth to retort but is interrupted by a loud, strong sneeze that wracks her body enough she loses balance and falls right back into the lava pit again.  

When she emerges, sniffling and dazed, he simply stares at her. It dawns on him that her flushed cheeks from before may not have been from what he originally thought. “You, on the other hand, do not have that immunity.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hell yeah are you guys ready for a sick fic??


	4. In Sickness and in (Hell)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter is a bit long, but you know how those sick fics be, right?
> 
> WARNING: Willow vomits in this, so if you're squeamish it's probably best if you steer clear of this one. There's coughing, sneezing, the whole shibang here.

In the first day, Willow is suffering nothing more than a couple of sniffles. The first signs of illness are usually mild, things that are nothing more than an inconvenience and can be easily forgotten over after a sneeze or two. It’s not going to keep her from doing what she needed to survive

Spring was in full bloom and Summer was just around the corner, between the garden (ugh, plants.) and preparing her things for the trip to the summer base, she just didn’t have to time to pay any mind to the sickness.

Wilson makes an off-hand comment about the snot she wipes from her nose when he arrives the next night, and it only serves to have her glare at him in her own right.

“Well, maybe I wouldn’t be snotty if if it didn’t rain so much.” She snarks at him. “Did you ever think about that?”

He watches her from a safe distance, leaning against the alchemy machine (it floated a bit away from the fire pit during the flood. In fact, most of the furniture seemed to intact if not a bit water damaged. He notes this later.) while she stirs whatever she’s cooking in the crockpot. The fire isn’t roaring as usual, it’s enough to hold him back though. The firestarter is too preoccupied with making whatever she’s making-it smells of eggplants and mushrooms, he thinks.

“Spring is always rainy as such. Don’t go and blame me for that.” He defends himself. She glares at him from the corner of her eye but says nothing, sitting down to enjoy her meager meal in the fire pit. It’s burnt, but she likes it that way. “It was your decision to venture out, regardless.”

Willow swallows a gulp of her food and frowns. “What other choice did I have? Do you see any motels around here?” She thrusts her hand, gesturing to the wilds. White pinpricks in the dark narrow at her when she wags her finger towards him. “At least I can leave and go wherever I want WHEN I want to. You’re stuck to the dark.”

“I don’t get stuck in the rain.” Wilson scoffs. “And you’re sick because of it.”

“I’m not sick!”

She sneezes, involuntary and all over her freshly cooked stuffed eggplant. The shadow king laughs at the expression that twists on her face as she sighs and tosses the ruined food into the fire. “Okay. Maybe a little sick. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Don’t overestimate yourself.” He warns her once he finish his laughter, letting himself drop to the ground. Willow sniffs at him, tiredness seeping into her eyelids but the hint of annoyance still on her face. It sorta reminds him of a bothered cat. “There’s never been an illness in the constant before. I’m not exactly sure what’s ahead of you.”

She shrugs. “It’s probably just a cold. I’ll be fine.”

One could only hope so, he supposed. Still, this would be a fantastic time to do some more research.

She shuffles through her chest for a moment, pulling out a crudely crafted bedroll for the night. The tent she regularly uses is currently out of commission, the flood having taken it’s toll on it. It’s waterlogged and slightly musty, probably needs a few more days to dry out until it’s back to it’s original shape. She’s taken a rope and some long sticks and undone the tent’s fabric to hang it out in the wind.

He looks to her as she lays down. “You’ll only get worse if you sleep outside. It shouldn’t take long to build another tent.”

The brunette waves him off. She’s sitting as close to the fire as she could possibly manage without setting the grass of the bedroll ablaze. If there was a material that could make a fireproof bed, he’d have no doubt she’d fight for it in a second.

“I don’t really feel like it. It’s just a cold, I’ll be fine.” She repeats herself. Bernie is snuggled securely to her side as she uses her arm to prop her head up. “I thought you weren’t allowed to help me out, anyways.”

Wilson goes quiet for a moment. “Helping you? Oh, no. You’re quite on your own out here.” A sinister grin appears. “I can give advice. That bit is harmless and actually following it is entirely up to the test subject.”

The woman squints at him and his grin doesn’t shift.“Okay, whatever.” She rolls her eyes at him and turns her back. He hears her sniffle muffled by the teddy bear. “Night.”

“Goodnight.”

She ignores him until she falls asleep, and Wilson keeps his place to stay near by within the dark in case that, somehow, the fire will perish and he’s needed again. He briefly debates on sending a hand out there to pinch it out but she’s laying directly between him and the flames. Clever girl.

Although not that clever, because the next morning Willow has a full blown fever and insists entirely on going about her day as normal.

He left come sunrise to attend to kingly matters; you know, keeping tabs on the ruins, feeding the hounds their gems, writing notes on the effects of nightmare fuel when fed to catcoons, (The subject in particular turned completely into shadow and started flying in the air to chase a butterfly. Fairly unimpressive, but results none the less.) when the time comes to check on the firestarter herself.

When he finds her, she’s deep in the swamp lands leaning against a boulder for support. There’s an eye-bone sticking out of her backpack, and Chester is happily bouncing next to her. “Well, well!” He claps his hands together. “Reunited, I see-”

She turns to face him and he stops, face going slack for a moment. “Oh. You look absolutely miserable.” Wilson muses.

The woman heaves a deep breath and runs a hand down her flushed face, sweat beading on her forehead. Her skin is pink and dark circles held under her eyes, the pair staring at him with a sense of distrust mixed in with the typical feverish exhaustion. “This is totally your fault.”

She picks herself up to walk away from him. Chester hops happily behind her (unharmed and healthy, thankfully) and she doesn’t have to turn and check that the shadow king is not far behind himself. A chuckle resounds from beside her, and she has half a mind to sneeze in his direction.

“Blame me all you want, you’re the one out and about when you should obviously be getting some rest.” He slinks in beside her, walking to match her pace. It doesn’t even register to Willow that the sun has been setting for while, she was too busy trying not to simmer. “Or not. If you plan on suffering a slow, ill-borne death than who am I to stop you?” He grins.

They find themselves at a wormhole. Willow secures her backpack, crouches down and picks Chester up with a heave. “I’m not gonna die-” She nearly looses her balance and stumbles backwards (whether from the Chest-dog’s weight or simply standing up too quickly there’s no telling) “-unless you annoy me to death. Ugh.”

She throws a rude gesture with her free hand  as she falls back into the wormhole. Wilson huffs and says something she’s too far gone to hear but it makes her giggle anyways. When she’s popping out the other side, he’s waiting for her there, a frown on his face.

He doesn’t get to say his retort though, because she pushes past him with Chester still in hold. (She won’t trust him around Chester for a while, it seems.) He exhales through his nose when she ignores him, amber eyes catching him slide next to her with arms crossed behind his back. He’s decided not to float today.

Willow sneezes into her sleeve and uses the same arm to push him back. “Outta my way. I’ve got a bonfire to light up.”

The scientist scrunches his nose at the motion but otherwise remains unaffected. “You’ve quite obviously developed a fever. A cold fire would be best.”

“Fever smever.” She sneezes again. Her voice is riddled with congestion. “And cold fire is weird. I want a real one.”

“I question your judgement on your own well being.” His stance remains neutral for two seconds before sharp teeth flash at her. “Makes it easier for me though, doesn’t it?”

She kicks out her leg likes she’s going to trip him, but he flies a foot upwards at the last second. Her flushed cheeks only add to her feigned look of innocence. “Oops.”

“An attempt on my life?” Wilson places dramatically places a hand on his chest and whines. “And after everything we’ve been through? For shame.”

Willow opens her mouth to say something just as equally as sassy but a coughing fit breaks her composure instead. The woman hunches over, riding the fit out until she’s dropping Chester and to catch her breath. “You’re one to talk you-” Another cough. Her throat sounds rough.“-You shadowy fuck.”

He scoffs at her behavior but says nothing as she steadies herself. Instead, he make a sly comment on her vulgar language (to which she promptly ignores) as she tosses her bag to the ground once they’ve reached the encampment. Chester bounds to his usual spot, Wilson summons a small notebook from seemly nowhere while Willow pulls the tent off the drying rack. Routine as usual.

She does her own thing while he writes. Lets see here: Sinus congestion? Check. Fever? Check. Sweating, dark circles under the eyes, coughing fits…Check. Irritated mood? Well, she was normal like that. So far the illness sounds common, though in the beginning stages, one could never tell.

Wilson pauses in his notes. She’s pining the tent down now, a sluggish look about her. Her actions are probably muscle memory, considering she’s been doing this since girl scouts (He thinks it’s girl scouts at least, it’s such a vague memory though.) but her shoulders are slightly slumped and she looks…slow. Lethargic, even.

Quiet as the night, he approaches her and hesitates only a moment to see if she would take notice of his position. Shadow surround his hand, now a black and clawed appendage, and he lets it rest gently on her shoulder.

“Hmm?” Willow pauses in her rope tying and turns her head to face him. “Can I help you with something-?” She blinks down at his hand. Suddenly, the woman lurches backwards and swings out a lighter from inside her shirt (An interesting hiding spot) and flicks the flame. “What the hell?!”

“Oh, no need for that.” Wilson waves his hand. It returns to it’s original form, leaving her dumbfounded. “Please, pardon my interruption. Go back to whatever you were doing. Don’t mind me.”

She curses at him as he pulls the notebook out again. Delayed reflexes? Check.

Nightime isn’t for another hour or so, but she builds a large, roaring fire after that and makes a special effort to keep as much light around the campground as possible. Between the coughing and wheezing, she threatens to stuff him in a chest from the safety of her fire pit, yelling as he escapes her reach he’s tastefully dubbed the ‘fires of hell.’

Night falls and she retires to her tent with no intention of getting up early. Wilson prepares to tend to the caves for the night, (He had discovered earlier that the flood waters had drained through the surface’s sinkholes like a bathtub drain. Messy, messy.) and stops only when he feels an gaze on him.

Chester (or really, his eye-bone) is staring at him, whether in exception or recognition he can’t say. He gives the dog-chest a tiny pat. “Don’t you worry, I’ll take good care of you once the illness finishes the job.”

A tired yell comes from the tent. “Stop telling Chester I'm gonna die!”

On the third morning, despite it now actually going into mid-afternoon, Wilson cannot find Willow.

Usually he can sense her presence anywhere on this island. The surface, the caves, ruins, it was all the same. But he’s checked all the usual spots: camp, with Chester still there but he’s doesn’t expect her to take him with her anyway, the forest she likes to burn down and replant, the pig king, the summer lake, even the beefalo fields. But there’s no pyromaniac.

Thankfully for him, it had rained early morning, the dark, overhanging clouds still lingering in the sky making it just tolerant enough to roam freely. He prefers to stick to the tree-line, though. Just in case.

Briefly he wonders if she’s dead, but then dismisses the thought. It was illogical, he would have been able to sense if she had died (and the idea of it makes him feel uncomfortably strange for some reason), the only other options would be anywhere he has no control over. Anything in the ocean, or maybe….

He returns to the camp and finds her slumped over in a crawl halfway out of her tent. It appears she hasn’t left since last night. “Say, darling. You don’t look so good.”

Willow blinks up at him with blurry, wet vision and groans. “I hate you….”

“So you’ve told me.” He takes in her form. The illness has taken full hold; she looks weak, skin flushed and nose red from rubbing it so much. Her eyes are puffy and her voice is akin to sandpaper at best. He watches as she tries to stand but kneels over, complaining about dizziness under her breath.

Wilson hardly offers any consolation as he summons the notebook again. “I’d find something to eat, if I were you.” He can hear her shamble about as he writes. “You’ll need the energy if you want to recover.” Or don’t. It doesn’t matter to him.

The sickly brunette doesn’t give him the usual sass he’s accustomed to receiving, instead slumping in front of the icebox and swinging the door open. “Got enough for a few days…” She pulls out a wad of meatball and munches on that, shutting the door and leaning against the icebox for support. “Whatcha writin’?”

The shadow king looks up to her. Her manner of speaking is odd. Slurred speech? Check. “Research. Eating solely meat won’t sit well in your stomach.”

She squints at him and takes an even bigger bite just to irritate him. “What are ya? A doctor, or something?”

“Yes. Don’t chew while you talk.” He watches her eat the meatball with an intensity out of spite than actual hunger. At least she’s eaten something.

A red tint falls over the land; the dark clouds above turn even darker as the sun settles over the horizon. Wilson feels himself form more completely and sets the notebook to the side, when he turns to the firestarter again, she’s staring up into space. “It’s…nighttime?” She questions. “Again?”

He cannot help but snort. “The sun rotates the earth and causes the day and night cycle, you know.” He doesn’t know if they’re actually on earth or not, but there will be time to figure out that detail later.

She shoots him a look. “I know that. I’m talking about, like-” A finger rises and points to the tent. “How long have I been out?”

“All day, as far as I’m aware.”

The brunette stares for a minute (he can’t tell if if she’s staring at him or into the distance because the woman looks so utterly out of it) before she lets out a groan and grumbles something along the lines of ‘wasting the day’ and ‘needing to go get firewood’ and ‘a weird cat invading her tent in the dead of night’. He ignores that last bit.

Willow’s sneezes a big one, and when she comes back up from the whiplash she is visibly disorientated. “I’ma just-” She points off into a direction a bit ways from camp. “Wash up. Be right back. Don’t uh..touch my stuff, mkay?” It sounds like she’s holding her nose closed with how she talks, oh her poor sinuses. She still can hold a glare just fine as she waits for his answer.

The scientist answers with a wide grin. “I would never!” He’s a liar, by the way.

She stares at him in a daze for a moment, then wanders off into the evening, somewhere towards where a single pond lay not too far from base. Wilson waits until she approximately out range before he floats over to her icebox and promptly swings open the door.

Well, she was right. She did have enough food to last for a few days but it mainly consists of meats and honey, almost no vegetables. There’s also a thermal stone in the corner of the shelf, probably there for the incoming summer heat. Not interesting at all, next chest then.

He flicks it open with a single finger. He should really introduce locks into this realms, anyone with malicious intent (such as himself. Ha.) could just break in so easily and sabotage someone’s things! There’s hardly anything in here though, at least anything notable: standard rocks, twigs, grass, some reeds, a beefalo hat, a broken mining helmet, old rotten flower petals and other miscellaneous items he didn’t care to note.

Wilson drops the lid in disappointment and looks to Chester. The eye-bone to the dog’s right squints at him. “You wouldn’t happen to be holding any secrets, would you?” He gives the dog a proper petting before opening up. “Let’s see.”

Oh, jackpot. There’s a mix of things in here, gems and blueprints included. The sight appeals to Wilson for some reason, the view of the items all together. One thing in particular catches his eye; a little brown notebook with an engraving on the cover. He takes it out and holds it up.

It says W.P.H.

Weird, those are supposed to be his initials. He’ll have to ask Willow about it when she gets back-

It’s almost nightfall, she’s not back from the pond yet. A feeling of urgency fills him. Quickly, he pockets the notebook (he’ll excuse himself his thievery on the basis of scientific reasoning) and abruptly flies from his spot, out into the air and leaving Chester alone.

The dark travels through the land without restraint, and closes in on a little circle of light near a small, clear water pond.

Willow feels the world darkening around her, on her knees staring into the water. She just came to splash water up on her face (she hates it, but she’s too feverish to visit the lava pits today) when the world suddenly feels very topsy tervy. Frankly, she feels nauseous.

There’s a hiss from the shadows and Willow flicks the lighter to life already in her hands. The hissing stops, the sound of shoes landing on grass. Wilson steps forward enough for her to make him out in the dark. “…Taking your time?”

“I, uh…” Her gaze is waxy. She takes a deep breath and looks up at him from her spot on the ground. “…don’t feel so good-”

She doesn’t finish the end of her sentence before her body promptly heaves and pukes sick all over the front of her shirt. It's a retched sound, and an even worse feeling coursing through her until it's over. The shadow king is frozen shocked in his spot as the firestarter gasps and wipes her eyes. She looks downwards.

Wilson sighs. “I told you meat alone wouldn’t sit well in your stomach.”

“Oh, COME ON.” The lighter is put on the ground, it’s flame just enough radius to keep her safe. “I just had a bath. I JUST cleaned this shirt.” She pulls the fabric away from her as far as possible and groans at the smell. “Gross, gross….so gross.”

Wilson shouldn’t laugh, it’s immature considering her situation and frankly doesn’t suit his style. But, seeing her face scrunched up in disgust was a little bit amusing, he’ll admit. Only a little bit. “Cheer _up, Chuck_.” He grins, “At least it’s out of your system now.”

She shoots him a sharp glare that could rival the sun. The heavy blush on her heated cheeks help form the picture. “Not funny!”

“Really? I thought you be able to _stomach_ that sort of humor.”

“Wilson!”

The king of Shadows turns away to laugh;  the shadows around him echo his behavior. She can see sharp teeth glint in the lighter’s light, it still feels weird to see him have such a trait. He eases out of his snickering and shakes his head, pride in his stance. He was the king of the Constant _and_ the puns, of course.

“That was rude of me.” He chuckles. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t really help myself-”

When he turns back around, Willow is shirtless. He gawks at her for a moment before scrambling to cover his eyes and sitting with his back to her, staring intently into the black of night. “What in science’s name are you doing?!”

The brunette squints at his turned from and dips the tainted shirt into the pond water, sputtering through a soft cough before she speaks again. “Changing. There’s no way in hell I’m wearing this tonight.”

She can practically hear Wilson’s frustration in his response. “You couldn’t wait until you’ve returned to camp?” He hisses. It’s a funny sight, him hunched over sitting cross legged with his hands-claws? were those claws? covering his eyes. Like a little kid, it’s hilarious.

Willow opens her mouth, (a cough escapes her and there’s a minute where it’s just her in a fit) and furrows her brows. “Why?”

“You’re undressed!”

She looks down. “But I’m wearing a bra!”

The gentleman groans something inaudible to her. “It’s still improper. You do realize I have to be around you at all hours in the night, right? I would, you know-” His voice croaks and she resists a giggle. “-see it. You, I mean. Does that not bother you? At all?”

He hears a yawn from behind him and a splash of water, but doesn’t dare look. “Not really. I mean, we’re out surviving in the middle of nowhere so it’s not like anyone is going to see-” Wilson exclaims something in protest (He’ll see it! Doesn’t that count?) but she continues talking anyway. “-anyways. They’re just boobs.”

Wilson could tear the hair out of his head from frustration. “They’re just what.”

“Just bo-”

“No, no. I heard what you said perfectly clear.” He holds up his hands behind him and waves for her to stop, whether or not she was paying attention, he doesn’t know. The sound of water lightly splashing stops, and he can hear her rising from her spot.

He feels her pick up the lighter and step a bit away because the sting of the light is no longer there. “Wait.” The footsteps pause, Wilson gathers his composure and rises from the ground. “Do you have any spare clothes in your camp? Can you not wear those?”

He doesn’t see it, but Willow is making silly faces at him while his back is turned. Tongue out, wrinkled nose, a real hoot of an expression. “Umm, you mean those weird gift things that used to show up for us?” She snorts. It’s much more pronounced with a stuffy nose.

“Yes, the gifts They gave you.”

“Oh,” A sneeze. “I burnt those.”

If Wilson could die, he’d be dead. Plain and simple. This woman was going to end him. The man takes two fingers and pinches the bridge of his nose and (for what feels like a millionth time) sighs. “You burnt them. Of course you did, what else would you have done.”

She squints at him in the dark as Wilson mummers something under his breath, shrugging off his suit jacket and holding it out towards her. “Here.”

She eyes the offering warily, and briefly wonders if it’s flammable. “Is…this some sort of trick?” She asks. A yawn is fighting its way out of her again but she manages to keep it down. “Cause, like. I might puke on that too.”

He’s still not looking at her. “Will you please, for my sake, just take it.”

She laughs at his embarrassment, and it’s still a delightful sound even though it’s a bit scratchy. “But what if I don’t want to?”

Oh, stars, help him. He’s debating on spinning on his heel and giving her an earful when the jacket is removed from his hand. He hears the sound of fabric brushing against silk as she puts it on, focusing purely on the shapes and movements within the dark. Was that Mr. Skits? Oh, he should tell him hello, maybe spark up a chat. Anything to tear his attention away from-whatever’s going on behind him.

“Okay…” He can hear a smile in her voice. She also sounds tired, very tired. “I’m wearing it.”

He turns his head hardly a few inches, and turns it right back around again. “You’re supposed to button the bloody thing up!”

She must enjoy seeing him struggle because there’s that laugh again. A few seconds pass, and he feels the light source approach him. A tap on his shoulder. “Covered up. For real this time.”

He hesitates, then turns, and finds himself filled with relief that it’s draped over torso. It’s big on her, and awkward looking. The material of shadow doesn’t match the rest of her outfit and frankly makes her look smaller than she actually is. Two puffy eyes stand out in contrast from the dark shirt, a goofy smile accompanies them. 

“To camp, then?” He asks her. She’s walking (more like hobbling.) ahead of him, a wet sweater slung over one arm and a lighter in the other. He’ll take that as a yes. And without a 'thank you'? How rude.

She already building up a fire by the time he gets there, (no need to rush. She’s not really going anywhere in the state that she’s in.) but he’s surprised to see the fire so low. He see's her sweater thrown over the drying rack haphazardly. She’s settled in it, her legs in what small flames there are, arms curled around herself and leaning against the sitting log for support.

“Didn’t get any firewood, today. So I used some twigs and stuff.” She seems to have read his confusion. Another sneeze escapes her, this one whacking her with enough force she almost conks her head against the log. “…s-still can’t get me though. Sorry to disappoint ya.”

The shadow king observes the fire. It’s pitiful, she’d probably have better protection with her lighter alone. Though, with the sorry state that she’s in it’s probably the best she could get for her own nerves. The spark of the lighter was nice, sure, but you can’t stick your limbs in and sleep in it.

Still, it’s a puny radius. He finds himself able to sit with his back to the log beside her just barely out of the circle of light. A part of Willow is too, now that he realizes it. But partial light is too much light for the king, and it’s against the rules to attack anything that isn’t enveloped in total darkness.

With the health of this fire, that wouldn’t take very long. Willow shuffles her feet in the flames, scooting downwards to lay on her back and peeks one eye over to her ‘guest’. He’s got a book in his hands, flipping through the pages quickly without really reading them. It’s not the little black one she saw earlier, but the scene fits him.

“You look more like you,” She hums, “Without the jacket.”

He pauses, letting the open book drop into his lap and raising a brow. “I didn’t realize I could look more like myself when being myself.” He says. It was true, though. The white undershirt and vest matched perfectly, the only difference being that her’s didn’t wear a tie and usually wore his sleeves rolled up while this one wore his down. Not to mention he completely lacked any sort of color.

Maybe it’s her vision failing, or she’s sicker than she thought, but this seems familiar. “This feels like normal. Us just sitting’ here, ya know? Like we used to.” She sniffles through a smile. "Sometimes it feels like you never left."

The king says nothing. He was even holding one of those journals he used to write in all the time. It can’t actually be _his_ , though. She doesn’t remember where she put it and honestly she’s too exhausted to get up and look. Ironically enough, she doesn't feel quite like her normal self.

Nausea rears it’s ugly head again and Willow lets out a groan, to which he peers down at her from what he was paying attention to before. “Hungry?” he asks. He doesn’t know why he did.

“Eugh, I don’t…think so…” She doesn’t know how she’s so dizzy when she’s laying flat on the ground. The world feels like it’s spinning again and she really, really hopes that she doesn’t vomit all over herself. (Again.) The first time was embarrassing enough and she’s tired as she is. “My head is spinning. Everything looks weird….”

Wilson doesn’t want to bring out his notebook out of fear she’ll vomit on it, so he makes a point to talk now and note later. “Could you tell me more about your symptoms?” He urges her, and earns a weird look in return.

“You said your head was spinning. Is it the same feeling of losing one’s mind or is it another type of spinning?” She was wobbly at best, but her balance was well enough to walk back to camp on her own. Her motor skills are intact, at least. “What about your fever, hmm? How are you feeling?”

“Wow, Wilson!” She pipes up, a partial cough coming out as she exclaims. “If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought you actually cared about me.” She watches him pause with her interruption and gives a goofy grin to meet frown he now dawns.

He looks like he’s going to say something in response but goes silent when the brunette lifts ever so slight, shifts to the side and plops her head down right on his lap. And over the book he was reading. The elevation made her neck feel relieved. “There, better.”

Wilson’s gaze darts to the puny fire to the fire-starer herself. “Remind me to add delirium to your list of symptoms later.”

Her prompt response is to sneeze upwards at him. He’s glad this shadowed body can’t catch illnesses. “Thanks.”

“Taste of your own-” She sneezes again, and the scientist has half a mind to pinch her nose shut with his fingers. “-m-medicine, buddy.” She snorts, rubbing her nose. The jacket is very soft, almost has an airy feel to it.

“I know you’ve been documenting all the gross junk I’ve been going through.” A finger points up at him and her fingernail barely presses against the tip of his nose. The king glances to the fire again. “What kind of doctor makes their patient go through hell just for research results?”

He brings his face down so finger is touching the tip of his nose, propping his elbow on his knee and letting he head rest in his palm. A splitting smile, sharp teeth glare down at her. “The best doctor in the Constant.”

“Jerk-”

“Now, before you accuse me of anything rash.” He taps against her chin and she shuts up. “I didn’t make you sick. I caused the flood, yes. But it was your decision to run around in it.”

She huffs at him. It’s a funny sight considering she’s so red in the face from fever. The poor girl looked like a baked dragonfuit, at least it was her favorite color. “Yeah, well. Real friends don’t let friends get sick on purpose so this one is on you.” She mocked.

Wilson furrows his brows. “We’re friends?”

“Uh, yeah?” She rolls her eyes and pats the side of his face. She smiling but it’s a loopy kind of smile, and her hand is so very timid against his cheek but it’s warmth lingers. He doesn’t know if that’s from the fever. “You’re my best friend. Or did you forget that part too?”

He doesn’t think he forgot it. It doesn’t feel like he did, he doesn’t certainly pretend that he did either. But it’s weird hearing her say it out loud when she’s less than a few minutes and a dying flame’s last sputter away from death. (A death from him, he quietly thinks.) 

He brings his hand up to catch the one patting him, brings it back down and looks away. “I think you should go get some rest.” She probably won’t survive till dawn if she doesn’t.

As he expects her too, she protests. “I’m not even-” A hiccup this time. “-Tired.”

Bold words for someone who sounds like they’re on the brink of a coma. Wilson shakes his head and peers off into the darkness. The creatures are there, they always are. They’re watching him, waiting to see what he’ll do. The king has an audience.

“…It’s probably best if you’d go inside your tent, now.” No answer. “Willow?”

He looks down. She’s fast asleep. He can hardly see her chest rise and fall with her breathes underneath the folds of his suit jacket.

This could end right now, he thinks. They know this. All that he needed to do now was wait. The fire is almost dead, could snuff it out himself if he wanted to. Easy, like lab rats, they whisper. Disposable. Her neck is _right there_ -

Willow shifts and mumbles something in her sleep he doesn’t catch between all the whispers, but it breaks him out of the daze anyway. Wilson takes a deep breath, curses the memory, and lifts her head out of his lap.

“I’m not doing this for you.” He says as he picks her up, oddly careful not to wake her. “I didn’t ask about the book. I need more results. I need answers.”

He’s doing this for his own benefit, he tells himself as he slides through the open flap of the tent. (The moment he enters he feels _wrong_ , he shouldn’t be here. A feeling of wrong floods him and he’s _trespassing_ and he should _not be here_ -) he lays her down. He takes off her shoes and sets them in the corner, moves the hair from her forehead so it doesn't stick when she sweats out the fever and quickly removes himself from the tent. The wrong feeling disappears.

A shadow hand slams down onto the fire-pit rather violently, extinguishing the pathetic excuse for a flame that was near death as it was. Wilson steps back from his handiwork, pulling the shadows back into his arm and picking the journal from the ground. He feels an eye on him that didn’t belong to the dark.

Chester and his eye bone sit quietly at the edge of the camp, it eyes the book more than the man. Wilson leans down, runs a hand over his fur and puts a finger to his lips. “I’d appreciate if you’d keep this between us, okay buddy? You didn’t see a thing.”

The dog-chest can’t talk, but the eye-bone shuts it’s lid and he’ll take that for his answer.

When he returns for his jacket the following cloudy morning, he ends up holding back Willow’s pigtails as she vomits into her storage chest while Chester cowers in the corner for witnessing her do so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so uh, listen. I kinda have a plot idea for this book now


	5. Sandy Hair and Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to Antilion, who eats your garbage and gives you some cool desert rocks. 10/10 great mob

The sickness comes and goes. Her clothes were ruined half of the time, she was constantly sweating out the fever and once Wilson caught her trying to eat a cold thermal stone in a sickness induced haze. He frankly laughed at her when it just clanked against her teeth as she complained about her hunger.

It’s over now, thankfully. But Willow had a different sort of heat she needed to worry about, and not even the nice kind you get from flames. More like the air began to sizzle and everything that wasn’t made of stone was viable to become tinder for Summer’s fires. (She wasn’t against burning it all. Except when Chester begins to smolder himself and she had to put him out.)

The season had it’s pros and cons; it was Willow’s favorite. Forest fires were a common occurrence and she is usually lucky enough to stumble across one. The heat was sweltering, sometimes worse than fire’s but it didn’t bother her as much as it did Wilson when he could still feel the burn of the sun’s rays. (It still burned though. It’s weird, how flames could never hurt her but the sun’s rays could. At least she’ll get a tan.)

She doesn’t think he feels the heat like he did when he was…normal. At least not now, since he seems perfectly comfortable in that dark suit of his. The king stays well clear from the harsh light the sun’s rays have sent out across the Constant though. Summer has made the shadows harsher, darker, and the forest canopy’s shade is much larger but he seems to have taken a liking to sticking in her own shadow as they walk. Less work for him, he says

Willow frowns down at him as the shadow shifts across the ground when she moves. She’s decided to forgo her leggings, occasionally walking barefoot in grassy lands since it was much cooler. She’d take off her shirt too and just walk around with a skirt and bra, but Wilson is almost always within her shadow during the daytime now so she deals with having the fabric stick to her skin on worst days.

The only part she really didn’t care for about summer was the need to move to the lake base. And cold-fires. Which were just as awesome as regular fire but blue and weird. And cold.

Willow pats the eye-bone in her backpack pocket, making sure Chester was trailing right behind her as she walked. She had everything she needed, she thinks. Food for a few days, some firewood, sleeping roll, an umbrella and hat to help with the heat, and a couple of trinkets she found to last her a day or two without sinkholes. The Antilion was a greedy, demanding weird creature. She didn’t understand it, all she knew is that it liked to come out when the world was at it’s hottest. She could respect that, she guessed.

Her second follower is safety embedded deep within her shadow. She can’t make out the lines of his figure though the silhouette looks more like him and less like her. It has eyes, and it stares at her as she walks. Willow glances back at him and sends him a cold look, probably colder than the thermal stone in her pocket. “Don’t you have anywhere else to be but ‘there’?”

She gestures towards her own shadow and it causes it to shift, the eyes blink at her. “Unless I want to my skin evaporate to nothingness under the sun, no, I don’t.”

The firestarter mocks him. “If you want to move around so bad, why don’t like, cancel the sun?” It’s a joke but she really hopes he doesn’t take her seriously and does exactly that.

Thankfully, he doesn’t. “As much as I’d like to, that would also nullify the season. And I have experiments dependent on the heat, mind you.”

“Uh huh, sure.” Willow looks up. The sunlight was blinding, the day in mid-afternoon so the sun was at the very top of the sky. He probably hated it. “Why don’t you just go back to uh…that shadow place. The throne room? I remember you said that it stings.”

“I don’t want to.” Wilson answers. He doesn’t add on any other explanation and she can’t make out a facial expression in the dark black that is his current form, so she shrugs it off. “Weirdo.”

She stops for a moment to pull a set of goggle gear from the backpack before continuing, strapping to her head as she entered the desert, also pulling out her shoes to slip those back on quickly. (The grass is cool beneath her feet. The hot dirt of the desert probably wasn’t as forgiving.)

Sand is whipping around her in all directions but she can see clearly enough to move, and from the sound of the bouncing it appears that Chester is doing just fine on his own. (The eye-bone in her pack was squinting but mostly shielded by the sand by her own body, she feels a little bad but there’s no time to stop.) She doesn’t look behind her to see how Wilson’s faring. Probably fine, he’s technically not even solid.

When they reach the Summer base, he takes the first chance he gets to move from her shadow to something more stationary. The base is small, confined to a small area around the lake. It’s not as furnished as the regular base: An icebox, a dusty alchemy machine, a (completely necessary, she tells herself reluctantly) ice-flingomatic and a cold-fire pit. Willow scans the area in confusion before eyeing a burnt rubble pile of what must have been a crockpot and tent before snorting. Whoops, the ice-flinger must be out of fuel.

She sets her bag down, takes off the goggles and throws a log onto the cold fire pit, using her lighter to spark a flame. It flares up, the red color turning into a white-blue. Chester plants himself besides the fire in relief as Willow digs through the burnt rubble, (Free charcoal! Yay!) when Wilson makes himself known again. “I don’t know how you stand it. This light is unbearable.”

She pauses from stashing the food and thermal stone into the icebox and turns to stare at him, mouth dropping at his appearance. It’s not that he’s hiding underneath the shade of a tree, no, he does that all the time. But there’s a straw hat on his head, and he’s holding an umbrella. HER umbrella.

“Hey!” She gets to her feet and points an accusatory finger at him. His face remains neutral. “That’s my stuff! You can’t just go around and steal people’s shit!. You don’t even need all that, you don’t overheat-!”

“I’m borrowing it.” He cuts her off. “The sunlight was giving me a headache. I won’t wear it down, and you’ll get these back, I assure you.” He’s partially floating off the ground like he’s reclining. Add some sunglasses and a coconut drink and he’d look like a dapper business man on a summer vacation.

“But you didn’t even ask!”

Wilson raises a brow, his mouth tugs upwards into a smug grin. “May I please borrow these to not experience the painful, wretched sting of the sun?” The sentence is polite but his tone is mockful.

Willow crosses her arms and frowns at him for moment, scanning over his shaded body before throwing up her arms and turning away. “I GUESS you can borrow them.” She exclaims. “But you owe me a favor.”

“Sure.”

He watches as she returns to her work, seating herself halfway in the cold-fire as she reaches out to go through her rummaged backpack, (Thanks, Wilson). She pulls out a couple of trinkets; some oddly mismatched buttons, a broken little teacup, a shoehorn and so on. He stops paying attention and wonders where all of these things came from. He never knew when he was a survivor, doesn’t know now as king. Perhaps they were items of personal use to previous survivors, like Willow’s lighter was to her. Or Bernie.

Speaking of which, the teddy bear has been placed gently to the side of the alchemy machine. It’s looking at him weird. Wilson feels the urge to push it over. For science reasons.

“Okay, I think this is everything.” Willow stands, strapping her backpack to herself again. All of it’s contents have been cleared expect for the trinkets and the cold thermal stone she’s placed back in her pocket. He watches her strap on the desert goggles again and holds back a chuckle. It made her look a little funny. “To the Antilion, then?” Wilson asks.

She’s already walking off into the sandstorm before he can hear a muffled answer called back out to him. Chester remains seated close to the endothermic fire, his eye-bone planted nearby. Wilson shakes his head, and follows Willow out into the storm. The umbrella is enough to where he doesn’t need to slink into the ground again, but he stays trailing behind her. Just in case.

He can see just fine in the storm. The sand doesn’t affect his vision like it would normally, though the area around him is covered in it and blocking all around him in a small radius. He can’t explain it, it doesn’t exactly make sense so he chalks it up to being king again. There’s lots of little perks he’s discovering. Useful things.

Willow is managing but he can see her struggle a little with her footing. A stumble her and there, almost smacking right into the Antilion as they approached but she falls back before doing so. It stares down at her, waiting. It’s face is always expectant, and it glowers down at her as she steadies her feet.

The firestarter digs through her backpack, bringing out some buttons and holding them up with her palms. “Hey! Got you something!”

It glances at the offering before leaning downwards, eating the buttons from her hands. She sees a hint of razor sharp teeth within it’s mouth but the furry mane around it’s muzzle tickles her hands as it consumes. It makes a scruffily noise and looks down to her. More trinkets.

She briefly acknowledges the sun beginning to dip lower in the sky, digging through her bag when she hears a soft sound, looking up to gawk at Wilson sitting cross legged on top of the Antilion’s head. He uses one hand to hold the umbrella, another to rest his head on, grinning down at her. The creature does not seem bothered (or even notices) his advancement.

“You should give it your thermal stone.” He tells her. His smile looks scheming. “They’ll like it. Like ice cream.”

Willow huffs at him as she lets the creature eat a bent spork. “I’m not overheating to death just so you can run a little experiment. That might make it mad at me, too.” She pats the pocket where the thermal stone is safety hidden away. “You’re just trying to trick me.”

“Trick you?” He repeats, mustering up a falsely innocent face. She’s starting to get good at catching those. “Why would I ever do such a thing?”

“You tried to convince me to jump out of a tree because you wanted to try ‘turning off gravity’.” She sneers, doing little air quotes with her free hand. “I’m not stupid.”

“Maybe I can. You never even tried it.”

“Yeah, and I’m not going to with any of your stupid suggestions.”

The shadow king hesitates for a minute before clicking his tongue. “You got me.” He hums, holding the umbrella well over his shoulder. Willow’s fingers curl around the cold stone in thought, gazing back up to the man’s position. She doesn’t like how he looks down at her, how he speaks so high and mighty. She’ll bring him down to her level if she had to.

“Stop being a jerk or I’ll come up there.” She whips out her lighter, one hand on her hip. The Antilion’s head recedes back ever so slightly, glaring at the fire pointed in it’s direction. It’s bigger than her, at least three times her size so it doesn’t take it as a threat.

It’s actually kinda cute when it’s not trying to kill her. Not Wilson, the Antilion, of course. She’ll never understand it’s love for dumb rocks but at least it doesn’t talk and ask her to do some ridiculous experiments.

Wilson merely snorts at the action, though. “What are you going to do, climb the beast?”

“Don’t think I won’t try!” Okay, she wasn’t going to try, really. That thing was way too tall for her to even attempt and she was not going to risk having her body anywhere closer to it’s set of teeth than what was necessary. Wilson seems to have thought of this. “Be my guest.”

Willow hesitates. She stares at the Antilion, it stares back at her. It’s not hungry, not anymore at least. It’ll be satisfied for a few days and she’ll get to live tremor free. But Wilson was taunting her on purpose, and she’s no fool. A little irritated, but defiantly not a fool. The shadowy bastard knew exactly what he was trying to get her to do.

“Fine! I want my umbrella back!” She yells. Her voice is slightly muffled from the sandstorm at this distance. Her irritation only grows when all he gives her is a shake of the head. She throws a rock up at the umbrella with the intention to knock it from his hands, but it misses and sails right over his head.

Wilson laughs at her. “If you want it so badly, you’ll have to come take it yourself.”

“Burn in the sunlight, you thief!” Willow takes a step back and throws another rock, throwing a bit lower towards his hand.

It hits this time. But not Wilson, instead smacking directly into one of the Antilion’s eyes. Willow freezes mid-throw pose and Wilson goes quest, the creature just stiffens as it’s eye scrunches shut in a flinch and the rock rolls onto the desert ground.

Then, it screeches. Spikes are shooting up through the ground and Willow snatches her bag and makes a run for it. She just barely makes it out of range, her feet skidding against the dry ground before castles of sand and dirt rise from the ground, closing off a circle around the Antilion as it screeches and thrashes it’s arms about.

“Not my fault!” She yells as she runs. The sandstorm does nothing to hold her back with adrenaline coursing through her. “Totally not my fault this time!”

She hears a voice through the storm but can’t see the owner of it. “I didn’t think you would actually provoke it.”

She runs, the ground beneath her begins to tremor. Cracks and pieces of the floor begin to break apart and she has to zigzag to not get caught in the destruction. “Make it stop doing that!”

“I can’t. It has it’s own feelings, you know.”

By the time she makes it to the lake, the tremors have stopped and it immediately becomes stiller as she enters the oasis. The sky is now tinted a dark red, and dusk has fallen over the land. Willow throws off the goggles towards the chest, and hunches on her knees to catch her breath. There’s sand all over her clothes, all in her hair and little bit has gotten into her mouth, she thinks.

Wilson approaches her form, watching her pant and glower up at him in anger. He simply shrugs, unfolds the umbrella and tosses the grass hat to her bag. They appear to be undamaged, which for some reason only irks her even more. He smiles and folds his arms behind his back. “Thank you for letting me borrow those.”

She curses at him and he slinks away to avoid any altercations with a lighter.

Night falls quickly. Summer nights were warm, short and full of fireflies and breezy winds. Willow is in the middle of crafting a couple of fishing rods when Wilson catches her attention, leaning against the alchemy machine. When she turns to face him she expects some snarky remark or another comment about how she needed to brush out her hair. (It annoyed him for some reason. Her pigtails had tangles of sand in them and it looked very unruly.)

Instead, he’s holding a red box with a thin black ribbon. He stands behind the machine, away from the cold fire's light. “They said that it’s time to give you one of these.” He offers it out to her. “Don’t burn it this time.”

Willow furrows her brows and cocks her head. “What is it?” She takes it from him, and shakes it a little. All the boxes looked the same, even if the contents were widely different. She’s gotten thin coats, (that did nothing to help with the cold apparently) some shoes, gloves, even a blueprint on how to craft a chest that looked like a monster chest. But she burnt that one immediately because Chester is the ‘best monster chest a girl could have’, she told him.

“I don’t know, I don’t get to choose these things. I only deliver.” He answers, looking at the box with equal curiosity and interest. Willow gives him a look. “I thought you called all the shots now?”

“I do. Most of the time.” He waves her off and changes the subject. There’s no need to talk about his limitations. He hasn’t even discovered them all yet. Besides, he was a scientist over all, he’ll find a way to get rid of them. “Go ahead and open it. You need something to wear other than…that.” He comments on her dirty attire.

Willow rolls her eyes and unwraps the ribbon. “Gee, thanks. Such a gentleman with the compliments.” She mummers. Wilson makes a noise of something she could consider a response but she tones it out, peering inside and box and bringing out the fabric to the light. She squints at it.

It’s….a robe. A silk robe, a red one at that. It’s clean, shiny and soft, a feeling her own scratchy clothes didn’t give her at the moment. It looked to be perfectly her size as well, although a bit thin.

Willow beams at the discovery and turns to look at Wilson (whom is staring at the clothing article with a sense of confusion and almost bewilderment.) and flashes a grin. “Nice. Turn around, I’m boutta change.”

Sharp eyes dart back up to her. “What? Right here? Can’t you just-” Wilson fumbles with his words and quickly turns around because she’s already lifting up the edges of her shirt over her head. “Oh, sure. Don’t mind me! I don’t exist!” He sighs, staring out into the storm. She’s really got to stop doing that.

“No peeking!” He hears her yells back. (Peeking? What kind of man did she think he was? Well, he did try to kill her a few times. And stole her things. And mock her suffering. But peeking? Over the line, no-can-do.) A few seconds pass, he hears fabric shuffling and clothes dropping to the ground. The sound of her picking up something reaches his ears before she calls to him again. “Okay, I’m decent.”

When he swivels around, he has to shift to the birch trees because the cold-fire has been fueled again, sending light even further to him. Willow sits at the edge of the lake with a fishing rod in hand, fireflies dancing around her head. The robe fits snugly, she’s tossed her shoes in another direction, and her old clothes folded near Chester. It’s almost elegant, he thinks. That is, if it wasn’t for the nest of sand and tangles she calls her hair.

“How do I look?” She asks. He resists giving her a quick look-down due to his own manners. He can't stop from glancing, though. “Comfortable.”

She hums in agreement, stretching her legs out onto the grass and throwing the line into the water. They’re decorated with a few scrapes and bruises, some of them he can recognize from the hounds, some from spiders. Other’s he can’t remember. Though, the cold-fire shines a faint blue light on her skin, and casts a shadow directly behind her where she sits. He takes this to his advantage.

Willow nearly flinches at the sudden hiss of his arrival behind her. “Um, Personal bubble?” She frowns. “I don’t mind you hiding behind me cause of my awesome fires…but give me a warning next time, okay?”

He’s sitting close. Oddly close, actually. With a weird look on his face. The brunette is half turned towards him and notices that if she leaned a little bit closer, maybe half a foot or so that they’re noses would be touching. It’s suspicious, but a glance to his hands tell her that they’re not sharp, so she’s in the clear. Probably.

Wilson shifts so that each one of his legs are beside her, allowing himself some comfortable space inside the shade she casts. He can still feel the cold fire's light on him, but it’s not as intense as normal’s fire. It’s less of a sting and more of a chilly ache. It’s bearable. “Do you plan on washing your hair? Or are you going to sleep with it like that?”

The firestarter tugs one of her pigtails self-consciously and focuses on the fishing. “I don’t know, why are you asking?” She questions. He can’t see the suspicious on her face. Her lighter is nearby, at the ready if she needed it.

A gentle tug on her head, she turns it to see Wilson holding one of her pigtails. “Let me try and get it all out for you.” His voice is strange. He sounds like normal Wilson. His facial expression even looks like it. “I do owe you a ‘favor’, after all.”

Willow stares at him in disbelief. This must be a ruse. A trick to get her trust. There’s no way that he’d suddenly want to do something so nice for her without something in return, and so close too. He’s up to something, cannot be trusted. Who’s to say he won’t just pull her back into the dark and slit her throat or pierce her heart when she’s let down her guard?

…but he looks so normal, Willow decides against her better judgement. “Sure, that’s gonna be impossible but have a go at it if you want.”

She turns back to the lake and feels her hair released from her pigtails. Fingers are brushing against her neck as he runs the tangles out of the hair, picking them out little by little without hurting her head. It feels nice. Feels normal. There’s a heat rising to her face but that’s from the summer night’s heat. Totally not from the feeling of his fingers brushing over her scalp.

Her eyes are set on the water, so she doesn’t see the maniacal grin the shadow king has. “You don’t mind if I ask you a few questions, do you?” He asks her. His tone is friendly, calm. She’ll never suspect a thing. “Since we’re not really doing anything at the moment.”

“Questions?” Willow repeats. She holds a plain grip on the fishing rod when her face lights up and she shifts ever so slightly to see him out the corner of her eye. He pauses, a hand hovering over her ear. “Like the question game? Sure, I’m bored anyways.”

It’s not what he mean’t, but he’ll take it. He needed answers one way or another, and he needed her to give him the truth too. She was a smart girl, she wouldn’t tell him things willy-nilly because he just asked. It wouldn’t hurt to try though, would it?

The book he stole; interesting piece of work. Horrible handwriting, fluctuation in the words and ink, ranging from the typical doctor’s signature to something completely illiterate, but Wilson recognizes it as his own. The writing on the pages went from informative and calm to scraggly and looking alike to children scribbles. Information on the deerclops, the other monsters and the mushrooms, (various things he already knows about now, things he can control, even. It was useless info.)

The pages were none of the same, he hasn’t gotten to read all of it yet but there were blank spaces in the story even in the very beginning of the book. There’s a very slow but clear progression the writing. Writing of a collected, intelligent individual (ha, of course he is.) to something different, to the writings of someone descending into madness. Spaces in the story his own faulty memory cannot fill. He needs her to fill in the blanks.

Wilson loops a lock of her hair around her hand and summons an object from the shadows, grasping it by the handle. “Alright…I’ll go first then.” He says. “When did you first come into the Constant?”

Willow makes a sound of confusion but doesn’t turn, luckily for him. “That’s the question? You already know that one.”

“I forgot.”

“…Right.” She hesitates, thumbing the fishing rod in her hands. No biting yet, then again they haven’t been sitting there for very long anyways. “I think I got here sometime after you did. I think you said after a year.” She ponders for a moment. “However time works in a year here, I guess. It’s been a year since I got here. I think.”

Her sentence is full of ‘maybes’ and ‘thinks’ but it’s as close to an answer he’s going to get. Wilson reminds himself to make note of it later. “So you-”

“Nope. No talking. My turn now.” She interrupts him. He can’t see her face, but he can hear the smile in her voice. Willow shuffles in her spot a little bit better so she’s more comfortably sitting on the ground. She’s almost leaning against him, just nearly, but he doesn’t think she has noticed (or is pretending not to care, perhaps.) because she has yet to pull away. “What is your favorite super hero?”

His response is immediate. “Albert Eienstien.” He pauses and Willow blinks in bewilderment. She is about to turn to tell him that’s not a real super hero before Wilson snaps his fingers. “No, wait. I retract that. Marie Curie. She laid the foundation for the new discipline of atomic physics. Coined the term ‘radioactivity’ and set a new standard for medicine.” He rambles. “An incredible contributor to science.”

Willow glowers at him, but he doesn’t care to notice. “That’s not a real super hero.”

The shadow king thins his mouth into a line and looks away. “…It counts.”

The firestarter sighs, and returns to her fishing, feeling the strokes in her hair return. It was helping, she realized, that the sand in her hair was starting to become smoother, the tangles coming out finally. Sand it still evident in it though. She wonders, briefly, if he grooms his own hair like this. (His hair looked like the definition of a solid shadow though, so it’s laughable but she can’t picture him brushing through it.)

“Why do you have such an obsession with fire?” The question comes unwarned and unwanted. He feels the air goes tense, but continues to speak even though she stiffens underneath his touch. “You’re entire persona seems to revolve around it.”

The firestarter doesn’t answer at first, pulling up the fishing line with a motion quick enough it could be mistaken as a reflex. There’s nothing on the line, she frowns and tosses it back into the water. “I just am. It’s nice. I like it.” Her answer is quick and curt. “My turn.”

Perhaps a touchy subject then. She wasn’t ashamed of her immunity to fire, it seems. Fascinating thing, truly. He wonders is she was immune before coming to the constant or it was the gift given to her here upon her arrival. He’ll have to consult the book again, perhaps she gave him a different answer before when things weren’t so different.

“Sooooo have you ever crashed a car?” She rushes the next question without hesitance. Wilson thinks for a moment, his face wrinkling in thought. Memories shift through like a slide show. “I don’t remember if I ever even owned a car. Does your hair naturally flip like this at the end or do you style it that way?”

She feels him lift a piece for emphasis. “It’s natural. What’s the worst haircut you’ve ever had?

“I’ve never had a bad haircut. It’s always been fantastic.” (Willow groans at him. What? It’s always been handsome.) “How was your life outside of the Constant-”

“Hard pass.” Willow interrupts him abruptly, and Wilson goes to defend his question but she’s already speaking. “What’s the worst experiment you’ve ever done so far?”

He wants to tell her that it’s not her turn and that avoiding his question so harshly was very, very suspicious of her but lets it slide. He needs her to trust him. (and the way she sounded so uncomfortable made him feel a touch of an emotion he wish he didn’t. Pity or guilt, he’s not sure.)

Regardless, the scientist sighs and twirls a strand around his finger, parting her hair into two. “The portal that brought me here. Though, I can’t say it didn’t all work out in the end.” He grins. Survival seems hellish, it’s much more appropriate now that he’s taken the king’s mantle.

Willow falters for a second. “You remember that?” She echoes. Well, yes and no. But her reaction just confirmed his suspicions were correct. That’s one theory from the book he has figured out. “Yes. And that counted as your question. Do you want to leave this place?”

The firestarter thinks for a moment, as if considering her answer carefully. A strange question, especially coming from the King of the Constant. She feels like she needs to answer this one with caution. “No.”

That’s as extensive of an response she’s going to give him, but she knows he won’t be satisfied. “You don’t?” He sounds confused. His hands have trailed to the base of her neck, something running through her now smoother hair and brushing the sand from the strands. “Why? Don’t you have any family-?”

“That’s two questions.” She grins. “What about you, huh? Do YOU have any family?”

The grip on her hair tightens for a split second, and the fear that he’s going to yank her into the darkness or the sandstorm rises but it loosens. She hears him sigh. “I wouldn't be able to tell you if I did.” Ah, memory. A fickle thing. She almost feels sorry for him. Almost.

“Guess that sucks.” She thinks for a moment. “Ever loved anyone?”

The hands that were handling close to her neck freeze. “No.”

“Really? Not even the lovely Marie Curie?” She teases him with a smile etching on her face. Silence accompanies her answer until she hears him take a deep breathe. There’s no other response though, and the pause is enough to giver her reason to turn her head to see if he was even still there.

He’s there alright, holding her hair gently as he was before. A deadpan look on his face, there’s something mixed with his expression. It hints at sadness. Or frustration. Whatever it is, it’s not as important as the object he’s holding in his hands, to which Willow gapes at. “Have you been brushing my hair with a beefalo brush this whole time?!”

The shadow king’s mouth forms into a grin and holds the brush up, returning to his usual demeanor. “It’s working, isn’t it?”

Willow wants to smack it away. “UGH. That’s so gross! I can’t believe you used BEEFALO stuff on me!” She runs a hand down her face and shakes her head. (Her hair is soft, no longer riddled with sand or even the tangles from daily surviving. She hates to acknowledge it.) “I thought you were being nice!”

“I am. You’re welcome.”

The firestarter pouts out her lip and returns to the fishing line, cursing when she see’s the water ripple at where the bobber floated. She pulls on the weight, struggling for a second before it gives way and she pulls the bait out of the lake. There’s nothing on it. She groans and sends it back it. At this rate, she might have nothing to give to the Antlion. She still felt guilty for hitting it in the eye, the poor thing. Whatever it was.

“So, back to whatever we were doing-” Her grumbling makes the king chuckle and it’s a strange sound a bit too close to her head for her liking. “What about a first kiss? You’ve gotta remember that one.”

Wilson continues to brush her hair with the beefalo brush as if nothing happened. Whether just to spite her or because he’s fallen into the routine of the motions it didn’t matter. “It’s my turn, actually. Answer your own question.”

“My first?” She repeats. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him shrug. Willow thinks for a moment, tapping her finger against her chin. “OH! I remember. I was like, 8 or something like that.”

When the king gives her a raised brow, she continues her explanation. “So there was this kid named Walter, right?  He was a real jerk. Like, the worst bully at the orphanage. I used to fight with him all the time.” She uses her hands when she speaks, little gestures and motions he observes as she rambled. “So anyway, found out he thought all girls had the cooties.”

He gives her a look. “Let me guess. You gave him the cooties.”

Willow bursts into a fit of laughter. “Man, he LOST it. Super grossed out and ran away from me. Left me alone after that, too. Best idea I ever had.”

“Yes, I’m sure tormenting little boys into thinking they have some sort of made-up illness of affection must be quite fun for you.” He says. His tone is deadpan but sarcasm is dropping from every word. Willow waves him off and calls him a name he’s used to by now, but a word from her explanation is sticking out at him like bright lights. (and frankly, he didn’t care for those. His curiosity was fickle.)

“So about that orphanage you mentioned-” He starts.

Willow curses and he stops out of politeness of conversation. The fishing rod has pulled something up finally, but its a package wrapped tightly around some random trinket. Even as she unwraps the item-a little potato cup-and sets it to the side, she’s quick to sidetrack the conversation. “Forget that. It’s my turn to ask the question. Quit trying to steal my turn!”

The king huffs but lets her speak. She was right, after all. “Same thing. Who was your first kiss?” She tosses the potato cup towards a sleeping Chester for tomorrow, (it lightly bonks him on the head and rolls off, but he doesn’t stir from his slumber) before throwing the fishing rod back into the lake. “Do you remember?”

Wilson looks down, mindlessly wrapping her hair around his fingers and uncurling them in quiet, repetitive motions. The shadows whisper to him that it’s not important, that he shouldn’t even be entertaining this little game. But he has to at least try. Whoever he was, Wilson P. Higgsbury, needs to see if he could recall any detail from that life. No matter how insignificant.

“I think I do.” His face is scrunched up into a twist. “I don’t remember how young I was.” Willow swivels around in surprise, leaning in anticipation. “Really? Who was it?”

“A frog, I think.”

She stares at him. “A _frog_?”

The shadow king twiddles with the end of her hair (he’s completely forgotten he’s even doing it at this point. Willow must have to or simply not care.) and glares at the ground, at the shadow she casts and himself that resides within it.  The lack of light casts shadows on his face that one would say made him look menacing.

But really, he’s a bit lost. And about to be embarrassed. “I think I was a child. We were dissecting a frog and I…didn’t really want to.” He looks up to see her face painted in confusion, so he carries on. “I think I believed in fairy tales back then.”

Willow stares at him for a moment, before bursting out in hearty, rambunctious laughter. He can feel embarrassment trickle up his body and questions how did the king ever come so low as to this. “You kissed a frog because what?” She laughs. “You thought it would actually turn into a prince or princess or something?”

Wilson slumps forward and pouts. “I was a young, foolish boy. Don’t judge me.”

“Oh, I’m totally judging you.” She lets her laughter turn into giggles, leaning forward to poke at his cheek. He shuffles and uses the hand holding the hair to swish it over her shoulder, trying to give himself some room between him and her. Hopefully, just hopefully the dark is enough to hide his flush.

Her bubbly smile with her finger prodding his chin tells him that it’s not. Wilson takes a deep breathe and straightens his posture, turning his head to meet her gaze head on. He hopes it’s intimidating enough for her to turn back around. (Shadow were naturally threatening. This trait extends to the shadow king, of course.) It’s not, she stays close out of mockery. Or perhaps giddy ignorance.

Finally her teasing stops, and a sad, pitiful look comes across her face. “Hey, don’t take it the wrong way. I’m just saying that like, it’s a bit weird.” She tries to comfort him. Wilson only frowns at her. “If that was your attempt at an apology, you need to practice some more.” He mummers.

She huffs air out of her nose in a pout, and Wilson see’s sand dotting her bangs. Right, that’s what he was doing. Well, the answers he’s gotten so far have been decent results, the method of getting them is odd. A bit too passive, but effective, it seems.

Wilson takes the beefalo brush and swipes it up her forehead, making her (now clear) bangs stick up at odd angles and ends. Willow blinks once, twice, then blows air on his face and turns back around to watch the lake. “Okay! I get it. Sorry for making fun of your frog wife.”

She hears him return his hands to his neck, the beefalo brush absent and mummering something about ‘pages’ and ‘the book’ and ‘the things we do for science’ and the like but pays no heed to it. Her hair becomes parted, one side being styled into her signature pigtail. (She can do this part herself, actually. But she’s not gonna bother stopping him from doing it.)

“Look, all I’m saying is that once you stop being such a jerk all the time and we find a way out of here-” She feels him hesitate at her words. She goes if he goes, but it doesn’t appear that he remembers that little detail. “-we’ll go get you a first kiss or something. You gotta have a real one.”

A pause in conversation. “A real one?” He repeats. Willow nods, leaning back. “Yep. A real one.”

The hands fiddling with her hair reach the base of her neck, and the brunette freezes and she’s pulled ever so slightly back by the shoulders. Wilson’s grin appears at the corner of her eye, and his breath warm near her ear.

“Was that an _offer_?”

Willow's voice hitches, a tug is pulled on the fishing rod and she yanks it without thinking.

The force from the pull sends the fish flying into the air and she has the sense to duck before it hits her. Instead, it flies slapping Wilson across the forehead with a loud _smack_ , sending his back to the ground.

The brunette takes the moment to catch her breathe (she doesn’t know why she’s out of it) and scrambles to her feet. Her shadow from the cold fire is still big enough to shield him, only barely, but she holds the fishing rod like a weapon just in case he tried to do anything funny.

Wilson lays before looking defeated and annoyed. A fish is flopping on his forehead. “I’ll take that as a no.”

She puts a hand on her hip and stands triumphantly over the bested shadow king and cackles. “There’s your kiss, fishlips!” She snorts as he groans at the new nickname. “Man, you just really have a thing slimy stuff, don’t you?”

He plucks the dying fish from his head and tosses it towards the icebox with a grunt. If only she could hear the shadow creatures laughing in the dark right now. They’re so amused, the lot of them. “I’d appreciate it if we never spoke again.”

He request goes unheard of, she’s already moving to shake Chester from his slumber and he’s forced to hide behind the ice-flingomatic (that she still hasn’t refueled, of course) to avoid the blue flame’s inch towards him. “Chester! Chester get up! You missed Wilson get totally destroyed by a fish!”

The dog-chest rouses from it’s slumber and the eye-bone blinks it’s self awake, blurry eyes darting from the firestarter to the shadow king himself. It squints in his direction, listening to Willow’s story before a staring at him with a emotion phasing over the eye that can only be described as pity. Wilson feels only a (tiny) sense of betrayal.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you into the lake for attacking me!” He calls out to her. Willow snorts at his empty threat and picks the fish up from the ground, it’s twitching now ceased, and holding it towards it. “I dare you to come and TRY it.”

White pinpricks from the dark glare at her ‘weapon’ of choice and meet her own gaze. “Dare accepted.” As quickly as shadows could move, he’s gone.

Willow stares at the spot he once settled in. “Huh?” She scans the area around her. It’s washed in a blue light from the cold-fire, but she hasn’t fed it in a while so it’s gotten lower. The sandstorm around the oasis is fair game. She makes a quick grab for her lighter, flicking it to life and holding it out towards any shadow she thinks may have shifted.

Chester’s sudden bark breaks her attention and she feels a little push from behind her, sending her falling forward. Just before she falls into the water, (and throwing her lighter to safety, of course.) she see’s him materialize from the shadow she casted. What a cheap trick!

He’s the one laughing now as she breaks the surface of the lake. “I’m soaking! I hate it!” She’s yelling at him, cursing his existence as he kills her lighter’s light and hides behind the icebox. She screams at him. She JUST got this robe tonight and now it’s going to be all wet. She’s going to have to change back into her gross, sandy clothes!

Wilson peeks out from the dark, presumably to taunt her some more before the grin on his face goes slack and claws come to cover his eyes, slinking right back behind the box. She yells at him to face her. (“Fight me! There’s only fireflies over here, I know you can!”) but he’s refusing to look at her.

Realization comes when she pulls herself out of the water and looks down to herself, her mouth forming a little ‘o’.

Apparently, silk robes become transparent when wet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love embarrassed shadow wilson ok


	6. Nothing's Changed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *whips* there's angst in this. sorry for the edge oops
> 
> Note: Mentions of blood/mental breakdown

It’s nearing the end of Summer, the lake is still somewhat full, and it’s almost time to head back to original base but the Antilion is still out and hungry, so Willow finds herself stuck on the oasis until it decides it’s had enough and burrows deeper into the ground. The earth rumbles, but does not crack, and Wilson make a comment on his research on ant’s patterns when they dig tunnels through the ground and she decides to take this as her hint that it’s finally gone.

The air is still hot, not hot enough to start some wildfires (unfortunately) but she keeps the cold fire lit at night just in case. Sometimes she had to move a few feet away because it was actually starting to get her chilly but makes doubly sure to stay near the light. Blue fire, strange or not with it’s blue light, was still protection. So she guesses it will tide her over until it gets a tad cooler and she’ll play with her lighter in the meantime.

It’s on the last day of summer, when the lake has begun to dry and the sand storm around the oasis has begun to clear, that the hounds attack.

What sorry excuse there is for the desert storm left does nothing to stop them from reaching her, football helmet and spear at the ready. She heard the barks, she came prepared, and they’re all dispatched within a matter of minutes. Even the red ones, that spill fire and ash when they die, fall to the ground and their bodies quickly rot into the earth, leaving behind a pretty, red gem for her to keep. Those one’s shes excited to see die, because for a few seconds after she stabs her spear through their hearts they burst into flames and fuel her to keep fighting. (She has been on this island for too long, she thinks.)

Wilson is hiding underneath a birch tree watching her brush the blood and ash from Chester’s fur, picking out little slivers of teeth from the dog-chest’s skin as she works. Poor little guy took most of the distraction that allowed her to kill them all so easily, she wondered why Chester didn’t just run for it. But he never seems to go anywhere unless his eye bone was going with him, (and his following habits reminded her of a certain shadowed fiend.)

Wilson hangs from his spot in the tree, looking down at the woman with interest in his gaze. “He’ll be fine. You’re wasting daylight doting on him.” He deadpans. Willow turns to send a hot glare that could slice through metal, but the man is becoming more solid by the minute so it hardly affects him with the power feeding into him as the light dimmed. “Like I said, he’s loyal, and frankly immortal.” Just like him. “It’s okay if he dies for once.”

The firestarter plucks out the last shards of teeth from the dog-chest, throwing them towards the king and giving Chester a soothing pet, but not before flashing her teeth and frowning at Wilson himself. “Don’t make me come over there.” She threatens. “I’m totally not against burning that tree down.”

As if to taunt her, he lowers from the branches towards the ground, shoes hitting the grass and leans towards in her direction with a financial grin. “Oh, I don’t doubt it. Of course, you could diminish this entire base to nothing but cinders but that would only make my job easier!” He leans against the ice-flingomatic, and pointedly notes that it is still empty. (He was always the one to  refuel it because she hated the thing, she remembers. He probably doesn’t though.)

Chester barks something as Willow rolls her eyes and rises from her spot, dusting off her skirt and putting her hands on her hips. “Whatever. Chester isn’t some sort of experiment that we can just throw away so you can sod off already. Don’t treat him like you treat me.” She huffs, moving to the stationary chest to organize somethings for tomorrows trip. This will be the last night at the oasis. “You were much more loving towards him when you were you anyways.”

Wilson’s eyebrow raises and he tilts his head at her choice of words, mulling over her sentence. “Not sure how exactly ‘loving’ I was, but it must have been terribly cliche. I’m much more improved now, more logical, that’s all there is to it.” He mocks her, watching her eyes dart to him from the corner of her eye and a grin of malice comes upon his face. “I am me. Nothing has changed.”

She wrinkles her nose at him. “You’re a huge asshole now.”

“That’s a bit harsh.” He tuts at her. “Why, I’ve always been a harmless scientist. I’m just more refined now.”

He’s trying to agitate her, (and it’s working) but she straightens her posture and points a finger at him, refusing to allow him the satisfaction of seeing her falter. “Harmless my ass. You just haven’t gotten me yet because I’m not stupid enough to fall for any of your tricks.”

He laughs at her, and slinks closer between the shade of her body and Chester’s. He comes close, very close just enough to make her nervous without her personal bubble being intruded upon. (A gentleman at heart, even though his was black and cold now.) and offers a correction. “Maybe not physically, but you’re shivering now, aren’t you?”

The hairs on the back of her neck stand up straight and she opens her mouth to tell him that it’s only the cold-fire's fault until she realizes that the pit isn’t even lit, and the sun was vanishing over the horizon. Oh, and he’s already made a move to get closer to her, one step ahead as usual.

Night is falling. Willow tenses before swinging around and swatting at the air that he previously occupied, his form darting away in a swift show of shadows. She grabs a couple of logs, the last supply she has to last her for this summer trip, and throws them onto the cold-fire, alighting it as high as possible and letting the flames flare up arms. It washes the campground in baby blue light, and she searches for his figure hiding among the shadows. He can’t hide in hers if she stays within the fire, since no shadow is casted from the flame. It’s cold, like flaring snow, (and she really does not like snow) but there’s no chance he could sneak up on her again.

The darkness falls around the circle of light as the last of the sun sets, and white pricks of eyes can be seen peering at her from the blackness. It flickers to the fire in obvious distaste before flickering back up to her, Wilson coming just close enough to where she can see him float in the air. He moves weird, strange, like a Cheshire cat in a old story she once read. The smile he wears matched just like it too. The chill that travels down her spine must be coming from the cold-fire.

“Scared you?” He grins. She swallows, mouths something to him underneath her breathe and turns away to get something from the icebox to eat. Her reactions to his presence was always so fruitful, and varied greatly. Interesting little results he finds himself dotting to see again and again, whether it’s her fear of him or the irritation always spurred a reaction different from each other and it only added to the subject’s unpredictability.

His behavior stims different expression every time, it seems. When he was neutral, she was as well. When he was mischievous, she was always on her guard. When he was, dare he say it, compliant even. (brushing her hair, giving her his suit jacket, those little things he thinks back on and finds his mind wondering and a feeling prickling he cannot define) she is suspicious, cautious, but friendlier. It’s always hesitant, though. He doesn’t blame her.

Wilson reaches into his suit pocket and pulls out the book. His book, actually. He’ll have to keep it on him at all times instead of storing it in the back of his mind. It wasn’t made of shadows, and could not be summoned like the little black notebook he used to tote around (both are vastly different when he compared them. One is full of useless information and madness and the other is neatly written results on the outcomes of his experiments as king.) he has to keep them separate for obvious reasons. He hasn’t fully understood the first book, yet.

He flips through a few pages again, eyes scanning over hastily written paragraphs and poorly drawn images. There’s some that he recognizes, like the cave where the critters hide themselves in, or the face of the koala-font surrounded by little doodles of trunks. The art is coherent at best, and gives more information than the curt descriptions they’re accompanied by. Still, there’s only a scarce amount of actual journal entry, and the book was thick with content.

He flips to a page where a fire pit is drawn, and squints to the little stick figure doodled in it. Pigtails and a skirt. A quite literal scribble but Wilson furrows his brows at the passage below the doodle. What words he can make out speak of red gems and fire staffs. There’s mention of a life amulet in there, but it’s been scribbled out with a big ‘X’ and replaced with a heart made of spider glands and grass and…red. Something red, like blood.

Wilson lowers the book to peer at the firestarter. She’s not paying attention to him, half of a fish stick from her most recent catch sticking out of her mouth. The fishing rods have been either used up or forgotten, and she’s hard at work at weaving a bedroll for the night. He doesn’t know why she bothers; summer nights were shorter and she usually stays up to keep safe from him anyways, she’d be a lot safer if she waited until dawn to catch some shut eye. (Then again, the sun was her favorite thing in the whole wide constant, as she so gleefully told him, and she hated ever missing it.)

The fingers turning the page pause. Strange, he doesn’t remember when she had told him that.

He must have been too quiet for too long, because eventually she peers over at him and squints at him in the dark, the light too dim to make out his position or whatever he was holding. “Ugh. I hate when you summon that thing. Makes me feel like a rat in a observation cage.”

Wilson glances at her with half lidded eyes and barely musters a response. “You are.” He hums. She calls him a name and finishes eating her fish stick, giving him a look over before sitting down next to Chester to see how he’s fairing. The eye bone brightens up at her presence, the dog-chest bouncing in his spot as she ruffles his fur and opens him up to see inside. He wonders how long they’ve been together, watching her rummage through his contents, and briefly notes that she’s gentle and giving him scratches as she does so. It gives him a weird feeling.

It sends an even stranger feeling to him when he flips a few more pages, past the paragraphs of the treeguards and living logs, and finds a little doodle of Chester with the stick-girl cuddling together next to a campfire. It’s enough to make him shut the book cover to cover and decide to take a break from his reading.

The sound of the book closing reaches Willow’s ears, and he turns to find her staring into the recesses of Chester’s inventory, form frozen as if taken aback. Wilson raises an eyebrow, folding his free arm behind his back and letting the book hang down in the other, and watches as she fidgets in her spot before swiveling around with an alarming speed. “What are you holding?”

There’s a touch of panic in her voice. He finds it peaks his curiosity. “A book.” His answer is simple and curt, no need to explain much further. There’s a bead of sweat on her forehead, her eyes are growing wide and he can practically feel her shoulders tense from his spot across the darkness. Amber eyes are staring at his hands, at the leather enclosed journal and her mouth is agape in silence. Wilson raises it for clarity, just enough in the light for her to see clearly. “This one, here.”

“That’s not yours.” She grits her teeth. It’s not black, it’s not made of shadows. That’s the old Wilson’s. “That’s not yours and you stole that from me.”

“On the contrary, I don’t believe this ever belonged to you.” He refutes, having the nerves to flip through a few pages just for the sake of watching her reaction. Another test, this appears to be important for some reason. “It has my initials on it. Right here, see?”

Willow has stood up with lighting speed, the lighter coming out of her skirt pocket and flickering it to life. Wilson eyes her hand with wary interest. “Give it back. That doesn’t belong to you.”

“I beg to differ.” “It’s not yours.” She repeats. “That’s mine.”

The shadow king cocks his head to the side and sends a questioning look in her direction. Her body was tense, ridged with fear or anxiety or something else he can’t pinpoint, but her entire mood has shifted drastically. She’s nearly shaking, though her face is twisted up in anger and holding out the lighter towards him as a threat. (She’ll never catch him with it. He faster than her, smarter. The dark was his domain and that pitiful lighter will hardly keep her safe from it.)

It makes him feel a touch of something he can only chalk up to something akin to concern, but that can’t be correct. The only thing he cares about is seeing how quickly she falters as claws grip the leather book and shadows stare at her from behind him.

“No, it’s not. This is mine.” His smile is calm and collected and sends her nerves haywire. “Everything in the Constant is mine.”

Suddenly, Willow is lunging for him with an outstretched flame, and falls out of the cold-fire's radius. “You’re LYING. I know you are, I know it!” She screams, brandishing her lighter outwards in search of the shadow king, whom disappeared from that spot, slinking away to places she can’t see but she can feel the presence of him draining her mentally. “That’s his, and you’re not him, not now. Stop fucking around and give it back!”

A voice echoes from the shadows, and it’s not the sound of the creatures that lurk between her and death. “His? I fail to see any other survivor on this island aside from you-”

“That’s Wilson’s journal!” She yells, gritting her teeth. “It’s all that’s left of him. You have no right to take it.”

Maybe it’s just her imagination, (she wouldn’t doubt it, her mentality was taking a hit at the moment and her heart was racing in her chest faster than her lungs could keep up with) but there’s a small shift in the world around her. Like a realization. Or an offense. “I have more right to it than you do. You’re the one keeping hidden away something that I wrote.”

She can hear the mock in her tone, the interest in his sentence as he taunts her from the dark. Willow swallows and clutches the lighter tightly, swinging it around in search of him. There’s nothing, no form of the king, no sign of the scientist. Just the warmth of her puny flame and the sound of his voice like he’s right above her ear. “You’re a thief. Not me.”

“You’re a slimy bastard.” She spits. “Come out from your hiding. I’m taking it back.” She tries to muster up as much courge as she can manged and for a moment it works, the firestarter taking a deep breathe and walking further into the dark, away from the cold-fire and deeper into the unknown.  “You can’t hide from me forever. I’ll find you eventually.”

“If by ‘eventually’ you mean by morning, then I hate to be a bearer of bad news but I have no reason to stay near you at all.” He chuckles, something moving behind her and Willow whips around in surprise to find that it’s the same pitch black as before. She grips the lighter so tightly her knuckles have turned white. Wilson comments on this with a click of his tongue. “You didn’t actually think I was obligated to be near you, right?”

“You’re breaking the rules.” Willow rebuts. She can feel it, the presence of the dark grow stronger. Her mind was going to summon creatures soon. “You can’t take whats not yours. You can’t take that from me.”

“But I can.” There’s laughter, it’s low and it makes her the world around blur at the edges and her hands cradle her lighter closer. (Her thumb is in the  flame but it’s not helping. Her mind is still fuzzy, the whispers are getting louder. His voice has become the loudest.) She hears him yawn, and it makes her only more angry because she knows it’s purely out of mock for her. He doesn’t even need to sleep. “I can make my own rules now, which you have to follow. So far, you’re not doing a pretty good job.”

There’s a tiny spec of wetness coming to her eyes, but she’s quick to blink it away. “I don’t give a damn about that. Give me back the journal or else.”

The dark seems to glint at her threat, amused. “Bold words coming from the thief like yourself. At least you’re entertaining, so I’ll give you that. A shame though, don’t you know what kings do to thieves that steal from them?”

Willow’s breathe hitches. “They shut up?”

“They _behead_ them.”

A breathe on her cheek and Willow swings her lighter outwards in a quick panic in that direction, but there’s only the sliver of a shadow as it disappears into the night again, leaving her to stand frozen in fear. He’s toying with her.

He knows she can’t see him, not the splitting smile he has or the eyes that have darkened, the way he watches her stand in place as the shadow creatures around him feed off of her fear and become stronger. She’s a fascinating subject, for sure. The little faces drawn in the notebook were cute enough, but the look of fear on her expression was much, much more satisfying.

But he’s had his fun, and she wasn’t any use to him dead. “Don’t wear yourself out over this. I’d get some rest and  prepare for the trip tomorrow if I were you, darling.”

Willow does not answer, and her facial expression is still stuck between a look of fear and thought, as if debating a decision. Wilson’s grin turns into a frown, and he looks out to the cold-fire a few steps away. Not quite dead, but lower, only a smaller radius around it now. Barely able to keep Chester within (not that he had to worry about him, Chester was very much immune to the dark) but it was enough to keep her safer than that pathetic lighter of hers.

She makes no move towards it though, and is holding her ground in the dark. The Shadow King stares at her from within it’s hold, keeping well enough distance away when she mummers something about finding him. “I’m not leaving until I have it.” Her voice is low, and it shocks him to hear it so suddenly. “If I can’t find you, I’ll make you come to me.”

She takes a deep breath, flicks the lighter off, and the air around becomes bone-chilling cold.

She can’t see a thing. She can hear though, the whispers and the sound of feet hitting the grass and the air brushing against her skin, her own heartbeat thumping in her chest. (She’s getting the journal back, damn it. She doesn’t care if she has to rip it out of his arms herself.) Her thumb stays on the lighter’s arm at the ready. Silent, waiting.

She has six seconds. The dark isn’t playful anymore. “Get back into the light.”

The firestarter shakes her and yells, reaching towards the voice. “No! Not until you give it back!” Her hand fumbles around in the dark searching and scanning until it hits something solid, soft like the skin of a suit, and something underneath her touch tenses with a intensity that can’t be put into words.

“You’re not him! You can’t take it!” It’s becoming a mantra, and she’s feeling for his hands. (Four seconds. He can’t move.) her fingers find claws and there’s a sudden hesitation in her. “The journal-” It’s not there.

“ _Go_.” There’s a hiss in his voice and it’s low and not like him (it’s going to be so easy, like cutting a string or snapping a twig or how the flesh gives away and finding out how easily she bleeds, will she squeal like a rabbit or will she choke on her own blood)

Two seconds. One second. Willow stumbles backwards and makes for her lighter but she’s not fast enough and there’s shadows reaching towards her, for her and it’s coming across her neck and dragging across her chest-

Wilson pushes Willow backwards into the light, and her back slams into the ground as the dark recedes from around her.

She’s…alive. Her eyes are wet, she’s started crying and doesn’t even register it until the cold-fire makes the tears on her skin freeze and there’s something wet on her shirt. Her neck hurts. Not a lot, just a bit. Looking down she finds a thin, clean tear line through her shirt where her collarbone would be, another at the base of her neck, a third running a sliver across her jugular. It stings, like cat scratches, but she can’t focus on it. Even as little beads of blood trickle from the wound and drip down into her shirt.

Instead, she wails, thrashing her lighter about and setting everything in a 2 foot radius alight. “I hate you! I hate you! You’re not him and you never were and you’re fucking sick and I hate you-!” The flames travel through the grass faster than any wildfire in the constant, running up the alchemy machine and the empty ice-flingomatic and the birch trees.

“I never should have fucking trusted you! I never should have…You’re not him! You’re not fucking him and you’re a liar and a imposter and I hate you and you’re not my friend and you’re not my Wilson and I wish you’d just fucking _BURN_!” She screams, cradling her head in her hands as the oasis goes up in flames. Willow takes haggered breathes, flames in her hair and framing her face doing nothing to stop the ugly wet feeling coming from her eyes.

Her chest hammers and she yells and screams and wails incoherently into a darkness that says nothing as she cries. The woman wraps around herself, sobbing into her own bloody shirt as flames destroyed everything around her. Chester was halfway in the lake taking shelter in what little water was left and Bernie was missing, she barely registers the teddy bear disappearing into the darkness.

“My Wilson would never hurt me. He would never…not once…” She screams into the darkness, waiting for any sort of sign that he was even still there. “Can you hear me? Can you get that through that thick fucking head of yours? You’re not Wilson, you’re not. You’re a fake and you’re a jerk and I hate you and I…I..”

The sentence falls into a sputter of sobs and panting. The fire around her is strong, but it’s useless. It’s failing her. It can’t take away the feeling of her best friend’s claws sliding across her chest. “…I’m an idiot.” She chokes up, her throat is starting to close up on her too. “I’m so stupid. I should have never…never saw you like I see him….”

The objects alight are starting to crumble, and the fire around her is starting to dwindle into embers and ashes. What was a bright dome of flames and anger is now faltering to a cinders and the remains of what used to be her summer base. _Their_ summer base. The alchemy machine, along with the rest of all the camp’s furnishings, were reduced to nothing but charcoal and debris. Her lighter has been dropped to the ground.

Soon enough, the only light left is the small, tiny flame the cold-fire still holds, and it’s just barely enough to keep her alive. But she doesn’t care.

“You’re not him.” Her voice has gone raw. She’s become so, so tired. “You’re not my Wilson.”

The Shadow King stands in front of her when the light dims enough for him to do so, eyes dark and an unreadable expression on his face. His fingers are twitching. (He watched his claws dripping with traces of her blood morph back into his hands, there’s a feeling underneath his skin he can’t get out) He drops to the ground with a blank expression, places a limp teddy bear next to her and waits.

It takes her a moment to see through the blurry vision, but she finds his face in the dark. So blank, emotionless, like a puppet without a user. Willow stares at him hard, there’s tears dripping from her eyes still and falling into her mouth but she’s cried herself to exhaustion and feels like she’s on the brink of passing out.

Regardless, Willow raises her hand and slaps Wilson across the face. He freezes, the sting of her hand on his cheek, just like the sting of the light feels, and keeps his eyes focused on the dark. (He….deserves that. He doesn’t know why he thinks he does. He doesn’t know why he feels so miserable. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t remember.)

“Why?” Willow croaks. It’s not a question, it’s a demand. The sound of her voice worn to hell spikes a nerve in the king’s chest that he doesn’t want to think about. “Why did you come back? Why do you follow me around and make me think that everything is like the way it was before but it’s not. It’s just not.”

He’s not looking at her, instead, he’s folding his hands together and keeping them placed firmly in his lap. (Put them away. Just keep them away.) and remains silent. Willow shudders with either anger or exhaustion she doesn’t know but she takes a fist grips the front of his suit, pulling him closer and leaning in to make her point. His eyes lock with hers, and she takes a sputtering breathe before speaking. “ _Why_ -?”

“I didn’t know who I was when I woke up on the throne.” Wilson doesn’t sound like he’s breathing. She’s not sure if he ever did. “No memory I managed to get back gave me any indication about who I was supposed to be or what I was doing there. It was like watching a movie about someone else’s life, none of it made me feel anything.”

He swallows, removes her hand from his shirt and lets her fall back away from him. “You were the only memory that did. So I found you.”

Willow stares at him for a moment, then she chuckles. Not out of joy, it’s the kind of laughter one gives when they hear something absurd. And it hurts, it hurts enough that it causes her throat to choke up and she feels a sob coming on and she’s trying to hold it back, a little cry comes out anyway.

“I miss you.” She reaches out to Bernie, taking the limp bear and curling it close to her chest. In a sense of tired exhaustion, climbs into the king’s lap and cries into his suit. “I miss the real you.”

Wilson’s fingers twitch, and he brings them away from her. “I am me. Nothing has changed.”

The blood on her neck is dribbling on his tie, her head is fitted underneath his own and he can feel the cold-fire dying a few feet away. Willow just grits her teeth and shuts her eyes closed. Maybe, if she’s lucky enough, she’ll wake up and this will all be a bad dream. And she’s so, so tired of this dream.

“I really hate you.” She really doesn’t. “I’m going to hate you until I find a way to save you.”

The shadows around him whisper threats to her through him. Wilson lets his head rest on the too of hers and remains silent.

A shadow extends from his arm and she hears something being picked up off the ground, but he doesn’t return her embrace. Willow buries her head deeper into him and frankly ignores her own self-preservation, and takes a deep, shuddering breathe. God, she’s so tired. He shifts a little, she thinks he’s leaning against the burnt bark of a birch tree and lets her rest fully.

It takes six seconds exactly, he counts, for her to pass out. Wilson watches the cold fire sputter before dying, darkness enclosing around them. He flicks her lighter to life, ignoring the burn and the seering pain in his hand as it sizzled through his skin. He uses his free hand to wrap around her, the lighter held to the small of her back, and waits for daylight to break


	7. Shenanigans and Permanence

The next morning, Willow wakes up alone and disoriented.

She’s laying on the scorched grass next to a charred birch tree, her lighter has been placed next to her head, Bernie still clutched to her chest. Sitting up and glancing around tells her that the summer base has been burnt to charcoal and nothingness, whatever was reduced to ash the night prior has flown off into the wind. The only things that truly remained were herself and Chester, whom was sleeping in the now dried up pit that used to be the lake.

There’s no sign of the Shadow King. There’s no shadows for him to hide in anyways, aside from her own, but she doesn’t find him there. So she picks Chester up, straps on the remnants of her backpack and makes the trek back to the original base alone.

The trip is silent. Strangely silent. Not that she feels like talking in the first place but it takes her a minute to think about how usually by now he’s here and he’s teasing her, following her, giving her half-ass advice or spurring another crazy experiment of his.

Not that she’s complaining that he’s gone. She’s still bitter, she can still feel her throat raw from crying. The lines on her neck have stopped bleeding, but dried blood was caked on her neck and she has nothing to clean it off without it scraping the skin, so she lets it sit.

Arriving to the camp alone and upset, Willow cooks herself a meal, runs her fingers through Chester’s damp fur and plots her revenge.

Wilson does not visit her during the day. Nor does he announce his presence at night. When the sun sinks over the horizon, dusk falling over the land as Willow puts the last of the rocks in place over their garden (As much as she hates the idea, she’ll need to stock food up for winter somehow) and looks out into the treeline.

She barely see’s him. Just barely. He slinks behind an evergreen the moment her gaze trails over his spot but the white of his eyes stick out in the dark like a candle and it’s a pretty, pretty flicker. But she frowns in his direction regardless. “Why are you hiding out there?”

The eyes flicker again, and Willow is quite certain he’s staring at her neck. With his stare brings a feeling she can’t describe. “What do you want, Wilson?”

It’s a redundant question. He doesn’t have to want anything, he just has to be near her at night. It’s a the rules, he goes where the dark goes, and that includes the circle enclosing her camp at night. Willow glances towards the fire pit she’s readied. It roars with flame, the highest she could make it. She made doubly sure to stock up on wood today.

The light casts shadows against the tent and the ice box and herself, all the usual places he finds safety hiding behind, but Wilson does not approach the camp. He’ll have to eventually, she notes, when dusk turns into night and he’s forced to get as close as possible. Funny how those rules work, she didn’t understand them. It’s odd, how the King made it clear that he was the one in charge and yet he’s still deterred by something as simple as a little, baby flame.

The first step to revenge formulates in Willow’s mind. So she turns away from him, goes to stack the logs and waits for night to fall.

When it finally does, Willow takes a deep breathe and scans the camp ground. Everything is still, quiet. Wilson is sitting against alchemy machine with his back turned to her facing out towards the darkness, holding something in his hand. He’s fully formed now, but his expression is not readable. Willow squints at him. “Took you long enough.”

He shifts. A glance over his shoulder, and he’s back staring into the dark again. “I’m surprised you’re not running from me.”

“Why would I be?” She frowns at him, walking over and peering over the machine into his lap. “I’m not the one hiding in trees.” White eyes look up to her, but her eyes fall to the box in his hands, (she had hopes it was the journal, but beats the idea down at the sight) and raises a brow. “A box?”

Wilson holds it up to her. Willow blinks. A burn mark stretched across the skin of his right hand. “Yes.”

She hesitates before taking it, eyeing him all the while. “Is this supposed to be an apology?”

He looks to her neck again, eyeing the dried blood before turning his head and resting it in his hand. “No, it’s not.” He didn’t do anything wrong. He did his job. She put herself in that situation. (He’s not allowed to tell her he’s sorry anyways, the words don’t form. He doesn’t know if it’s the shadows closing his mouth or his own stupor.)

Her eyes narrow at him, glaring into the king. But she says nothing, stepping away and unwrapping the ribbon from the box. The cloth falls away like shadows and peering inside she finds…a chest? A little decorative chest, touching it tells her it’s made of something flimsy and not good for use other than to whatever contents it held. Shaking it a little tells her that there’s something in it, multiple things, maybe. “Is this supposed to be a joke?” She holds out the chest to him. “What is this supposed to mean?”

Wilson eyes the chest. “It means you got lucky with this roll.” He tells her. The brunette raises a brow. “Feels like a compensation.”

He glints at her. He doesn’t like how she stares down at him, so he rises from his spot, enough to still be hidden in the machine’s shadow but to the point where he’s taller than her now. Wilson brushes off her comment, crossing his arms. “It’s not an apology. I don’t get to choose what’s in those things anyways. I can only deliver.”

Willow gives him a look. Not a satisfactory answer, but whatever, it was time to get her revenge on the roll. The firestarter spins on her heel and tosses the chest unceremoniously into the tent. “I’ll get to it later.” She digs through her skirt pocket, finding her trusty lighter. (She spares a glance towards his hand again, but he’s got it pocketed away in his slacks)

Wilson finally looks up from whatever he was keeping his attention on, takes a deep breath, and faces her directly. “I have something important to tell you.”

“Is it an apology?”

“No.”

Willow waves him off. “It can wait then.”

The Shadow King looks to protest but pauses as she pushes past him, past the confinements of camp and flicking her lighter on, walking into the darkness surrounded the area. “What are you doing?”

“Testing something.” She glances over her shoulder. He’s looking at her odd. “Are you coming, or not?”

“I don’t really have a choice in the matter.” There’s a slight sneer in his voice. Hardly there, but she can tell he’s a bit agitated. Or nervous. He’s hesitant in his following. “Whatever this test is, I’m sure it can wait until morning. Nighttime experimentation are more of my thing, don’t you think?”

“This can’t wait until morning.” She stops until she’s a distance away and turns to face him. The dark shrouds his form almost completely, the lighter’s light hardly illuminates him. He hasn’t smiled once since he’s been here, she notices, his mouth pressed into a thin line. She holds the lighter out towards him. “Paying attention?”

White eyes narrow at her, suspicious. He’s intimidating even as so, a few feet away and glaring her down from his spot in the dark. He’s not floating, walking just as she does, and Willow finds that little detail is enough to keep her nerves from edging over from what she was about to do. “Watch.”

Willow flicks the lighter off for a millisecond, and she swears the white in the dark turns a blood red.

She turns the lighter back on. Wilson is closer, just one step closer and he looks startled. His expression is no longer the neutral he kept before, but a tense look about him. The brunette notes the way his teeth poke out a little at the snarl that comes out of him. “Have you learned nothing?” He hisses. “Or have you completely lost your senses?”

She says nothing, only glaring at him, and Wilson thinks he see’s a little sly smile on her mouth as she turns the lighter back off again. “No, I’m fine actaully.” She turns it back on again. He’s another step closer, though he looks nearly frozen in in the low light. Willow looks him up and down. “Can you say the same?”

Wilson hisses as she repeats the motion, turning the lighter on and back off again, momentarily shrouding herself completely in darkness (he can feel his mind split and hands sharpen with every cycle, with every second she’s in the dark suddenly the blood on her neck smells so fresh) and he’s this close to losing what little slivers of his mind he has left.

Another repeated flicker and this time when she flicks it to life she flinches when he’s closer than he’s been before, (his hand it outstretched, towards the lgihter or her neck she can’t tell) and he’s one step away from colliding with her completely. Willow takes a quick step back and holds the lighter out for good measure.

Wilson’s teeth is bared in a semblance or pain or frustration, perhaps a mix of the two. “You are playing with _fire_.”

Just to spite him, she turns it off and back on again, and doesn’t so much as flinch when he fidgets in his spot. “That’s sorta my thing, isn’t it?”

The lines on her neck must ache, but Wilson will dare say that the shadows coursing through his body are a much, much more intentse feeling. It doesn’t feel bad. It’s empowering, even. The sound of her heartbeat was so loud when she was completely surround by the dark. (His hands shift between skin and claws so quickly he doesn’t know which one is it now. He has no say in the matter, no say in the unpredictability.)

He doesn’t look like he’s in pain, Willow notes. Just upset, which is highly unusual. Her free hand rises to run over the skin of her neck. It feels rough under her fingertips. “What’s the problem? I thought this would be a field day for you?”

Wilson’s mouth twitches upwards. It doesn’t look voluntary. “This isn’t a game.” He grits his teeth. “I will kill you.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted in the first place?!” She holds her lighter defensively. “Are you glad I’m just making your job easier for you?!”

Quietly, softly, she hears him laugh. The teeth that were turned up into a snarl are now pulled up into a smile that could only be described as mad. “Do you have a _death wish_?” He chuckles. “Because you’re certainly asking for one.”

“I want an explanation.” She cuts him off. “And I want answers. I wanna know why you act the way you do and how to…” She gestures to him, searching for the correct words. “How to fix you.”

Wilson’s smile stretches wider than she thought possible. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Obviously.” She refutes, giving him one last look over before raising her thumb.

Wilson see’s her finger twitch the second before it happens but suddenly it’s dark again and Willow can feel the air around her shift and move and suddenly the hand that’s holding her lighter is grabbed and something, someone else turns it back on. It’s not her. It’s a different hand. And it’s being held tightly against her grip.

She blinks as light comes to her eyes again. Wilson is holding her wrist hostage and her fingers in place, sneering at her. “Stop. I’m done with this.”

Wide amber eyes stare into crimson, until Willow shakes her head and they’re white again. She’s never seen a red so cold before. Still, the hand around her wrist was not much less than warm. A moment of tense silence passes, both exchanging glares until one decides that it’s enough to get his point across and removes his hand from her wrist-

Willow’s hand flies out to snatch it, bringing it closer to the light to view it. The distance between his skin and the flame isn’t enough to burn him, but the light’s intensity is enough to sting the already sneered skin that’s there. It catches him by surprise, watching as her eyes dart over his fingers.

She runs a thumb over the burn mark on his skin. (His real skin, not his claws, not shadow hands) and looks up. “How did this happen?”

He yanks his hand away from her, sending a glare towards the lighter. “Are you really in the position to be asking questions?”

Yes, she is. But he’s visibly agitated, he looks non-cooperative and Willow knows that if she pushes her luck any more than she already has than the answers she gets may not be the ones she needs. Assuming she gets any at all. So she huffs at him, pushes past and walks back to camp. She doesn’t tell him good night when she barrels into the tent for the night.

Wilson finds a shaded spot behind the tent to sit and rub at his temples. (The feeling still lingers, even now, and he remembers how easily her flesh gave way under his fingertips. A memory more intact than anything else he can bring to mind.) The Shadow King sighs, pulls out the journal and decides to read for the rest of the night. The madness in these notes can’t decipher themselves.

 

* * *

Willow emerges from the tent the next morning bright and early, yawning as she stretches. The tent was a relatively comfortable size, sure, she wished she had something softer to sleep on instead of a tarp thrown over the hard ground.

 

To her surprise, Wilson is still there. He’s found refuge in the shade of a nearby tree that looms over the camp near the space she’s footed out to be the garden area. He doesn’t look up from his reading, she notes, he’s flipping through a familiar leather journal and pausing every so often on a stray page. A quiet moment passes, and without glancing towards her Wilson marks his place between the pages and shuts the book closed. “Good morning.”

He sounds tired. Which is odd, because as far as she’s aware, he doesn’t need to sleep. Willow grabs a trovel fashioned from spare flint and wood and kneels next to one of the farming plots, looking up at him to his spot in the tree branch. “I guess.” She hums, reluctantly digging the tool into the soil. “Doesn’t sound like a good morning for you, though.”

She hears him hum. “It never is. The sunlight is always an unwelcome occurrence.” He tells her. The woman plucks a couple stray weeds from the plot and tosses them to the side, sending a grin in his direction. “Great. You hating it only makes me love it even more.”

His mouth turns into a pout and he turns to look down at her and say something she’s assuming to be a comeback but he just stop. And has an odd look on his face. Then he’s bringing his hand to cover his eyes in a motion she can’t tell if he’s trying to hide or face palm himself but she recognizes that embarrassment and it makes her laugh. “What on earth are you wearing?” He sighs.

Willow gets up, brushes the dirt off her pants legs and puts both hands on her hips. “These were in the chest from last night. Pretty nifty, huh?” She strikes a little pose, fully knowing he wasn’t going to even chance a look in her direction. “They’re kinda ugly but I don’t want to burn them just yet.”

Despite the inner gentleman asking him not to, Wilson peaks through the crack in his fingers. It’s nothing flashy, nothing too extravagant or suggestive such as that damnable silk robe, (He’s quite sure They were mocking him with that article of clothing. He can’t complain though, pushing her into the lake was his idea after all.) It’s some regular sneakers, a pair of trousers and…what appears to be a tank-top that’s been cut? It’s not far from being labeled as a bra and the thought of it being so only makes him even more nervous.

His gaze trails from the skin on her stomach and her collarbone to the lines running across her neck, as if put on display, promptly turns away. “That shirt you’re wearing is indecent.”

She snarks up at him from the ground. “It’s called a crop top, old man. Get with the times.”

He frowns. “First of all, I’m not ‘old’. Though I do have a few years on you.” He lets a grin rise on his face. He’s not sure, but he thinks she’s sticking her tongue out at him. She acted like such a child for someone of her age. “Second, I don’t see why you’d want to wear something so…” He trails off for a minute. “That. Just that. Whatever that is.”

She laughs at the way his tongue ties. It’s pleasant sounding, even though it’s at his misfortune, it makes him realize it’s been a touch too long since she’s last laughed. He will not admit that it’s nice to hear it again. “I’m gardening today. I don’t want to get my other clothes dirty so you can just deal with it.”

He’s still hiding behind one of his hands. The burned one, she notes, is holding the journal tightly. “Your sense of fashion is horrible.”

“It’s practical!” She defends, pointing up at him. “You’re wearing a suit in the middle of the freaking wilderness!”

“Of course I’m in a suit. I’m more refined than you are.” He taunts her. “And I look quite dashing in it.”

“More like a jerk.” She crosses her arms and pouts up at him. Her arms press against the red fabric that is whatever that article of clothing is and he can faintly see the outlines of what lies underneath. (He immediately stops peaking and curses himself and his manners for doing so.) Willow huffs at him. “Just you wait until I get a nice dress or something in a box. I’ll look way better than you do.”

“I’m sure you will.” He resigns, “Are you really not going to change?”

“Nope.”

Something drops on her head. Willow blinks at the sudden darkness and shuffles something soft off her head. She holds it up to the light, a familiar jacket. Wilson, now clad in his vest and tie, waves her away from the tree. His hand as fallen to his lap, but he’s still trying not to look at her. “At least pretend to be decent.”

The firestarter glares at him in offense and opens her mouth to say something before shutting it closed, the frown on her face brightening. An idea comes to mind. She grows a grin and spins on her heel. “I think not!”

Her change of attitude makes him glance over at her, though he tries not to, but he lets his eyes linger and squint when he sees her tossing wood into the fire pit and setting it alight. The daylight was strong, and even though she’s a firebug for as long as he’s known her, she’s not one to waste resources. This includes firewood. “What are you up to?”

Willow tosses his jacket into the fire and stands proudly as he gawks. “Oh.”

She leans into the flames, watching the fabric closely, expectantly before her mouth forms a little ‘o’ and she plucks it from the flames. It’s unburnt, unscathed and she has a little bit of giddiness in her step as she bounds back to him and holds it up. “You’re clothes are inflammable! I totally thought they would burn!” She laughs. “Let me try it with your vest and tie!”

The king hisses at her and leans further away, deeper into the tree and away from her outstretched hands. “No!”

“C’mon!” She urges. “It’s an experiment!”

“Put the damn jacket on and I’ll THINK about it.” He’s lying by the way. Try as he might, intimidation doesn’t work on the woman who’s making the King himself flush to the point where he can’t so much as look downwards from her face. He just might lose his balance and fall from this damn tree.

Willow has a mischievous grin, takes the sleeves of the jacket and ties them in a knot around her waist. She can practically hear him fuming. “There! I’m wearing it. So how about tha-”

“Absolutely not.” He snarks. “At least one of has to be proper when you have no regards to other people’s feelings when you’re strutting about like THAT”

“That’s your personal problem, buddy. Not mine.” She groans. Willow puts her arms out, spinning in a little circle before stopping. Even striking a little pose as he stares down in shock. “Take it all in, shadow boy. I’m not gonna change just cause somebody can’t handle a little skin. Get used to it!”

He really shouldn’t, he really shouldn't be taunted by this pawn’s little taunt but he is, she knows all the right buttons to press and Wilson opens his mouth to say something but he’s giving her a full look over and the words die in his throat.

She looks soft. She looks very warm, little details he hadn’t noticed before now note themselves. (like the freckles dotting her shoulders, the way his jacket is snug against her hips, the dip of collarbone) and Wilson finds himself staring at dried blood that trailed from her throat to where it disappeared behind her ‘shirt’.

“Well? Are you done being a pansy?” She asks him, hands on her hips. She doesn’t get an answer, Wilson is just kinda silent and it’s starting to become a bit unnerving. Willow hops up a bit, bringing her fingers as close to his face as her height will allow her to and snaps her fingers. “Hello? Earth to scientist?”

Wilson blinks. Once. Twice. “You haven’t treated your wound at all.”

Oh right, she kinda forgot about that. Well, she wanted to for a while, can you really blame her? Willow falls back and shrugs. “Okay? I cleaned it though. The healing slave stings anyways.”

Just well enough in the shade, Wilson drops from the tree, still holding the journal in one hand and approaching her with the other outstretched. “It’s red and starting to swell. If you don’t disinfect it soon it could possibly-” An inch away from her neck and Willow flinches backwards. A pause, and Wilson lets his hand drop to his side. “…get infected.”

She fidgets in her spot. “Why do you care?”

The fingers in his burnt hand twitch around the notebook, and his mouth winds up in a sharp smile. “Just some advice.” He tells her. There’s something underlying his tone of voice, masked by his usual attitude. “Though I highly recommend you start following. I have something of great importance to discuss with you.”

Willow snorts and walks away, glancing over her shoulder. “If it’s fashion advice, I’m gonna go ahead of give it a hard pass.” She sees him stop in the corner of her eye, Wilson eyeing the ground where the shadow of the tree ended and the sunlight touches the grass. She calls out to him in mockery. “You look like you could use a tan, though!”

He grumbles something under his breath she can’t hear and settles with his back to the bark of the tree, flipping through the notebook and watching as she returns to her gardening. She’s hating it, he can tell, but even her disgust falters when she reaps her rewards, a sense of pride coming across her face as she pulls out the rest of the weeds and throwing them to fuel the fire. At least she won’t be wasting firewood.

The rest of the day is short, and Willow spends the majority of it in the dirt and gathering what she could. A few carrots, a eggplant that may or may not have been infested with pests (she’s not the best gardener, okay? she throws that into the fire anyways) and a watermelon she hefts over to the little ‘kitchen area’ of the camp and sets it down, dusting herself off. Dusk has begun to fall.

A little clap sounds from behind her and she turns to see Wilson more solid, she can’t see the tree bark through his body anymore. “You’ve actaully grew food for once. Congrats.” He mocks her. “Keep it up and you won’t starve this coming Winter.”

She wrinkles her nose at him. “Unfortunately for you, I have no plans to starve to death anytime soon.

The clapping stops, and a realization faintly flashes over his face, as if he remembered something (that would be a first, she thinks) and Wilson’s mockery turns into a frown. “Right. Unfortunate.” He hums, looking down to the journal. He briefly acknowledges her walking towards him before he continues. “About that thing I needed to talk to you about-”

Something cold and wet sticks to his forehead and he freezes mid-sentence, the firestarter backs up from him and plops down to the ground next to him, popping a melonsicle in her mouth as she mushed a bowl of spider glands and ash together with a rock. A torn piece of cloth sits in her lap as well as her lighter. She’ll never be without it.

“Had ‘nuff to make an extra one.” She muffles through her own treat, giggling at just how silly he looks with a Popsicle stuck to his head. “Hurry n’ eat it ‘fore it melts.”

Wilson plucks the melonsicle from his forehead and sighs. Her habit of talking while eating would always baffle him. He twirls the Popsicle stick, giving it a thought. “I don’t eat.”

“Try it anyway.” Willow takes a bite of the frozen melon, and a tug reaches his mouth when it causes her teeth to shudder for a moment. She manages a swallow before pointing at him. “Try it like an experiment.”

He squints at her, but pops the treat in his mouth anyways. It’s sweet, exactly how a watermelon flavored Popsicle would be expected to taste. He’s not sure what she’s getting at. “Tastes normal to me.”

“So you can taste then?” She notes, giving a little nod and churning the salve until it’s a gooey, light pink substance. (He see’s her eyes dart to the journal in lap, the twitch of her fingers and instinctively he brings it to the other side of him out of her reach and out of her sight. She says nothing about it.) “Cool. Do you feel touch the same way too?”

He raises a brow at her. “My forehead feels sticky now, thanks to you, if that’s what you mean.” She shrugs, setting the bowl down and taking a little bit on her fingers. “Just wondering.”

She tilts her head up and Wilson holds out his hands to stop her. He’s giving her an odd look. “You’re not actually doing that, are you?” He sounds disgusted. Willow cocks her head to the side, lowering her hand and furrowing her brows. “Uh, yeah? You’re the one who told me to disinfect it.” She frowns. “Thanks, by the way.”

It’s a jab. It’s his fault and he knows she’s still bitter about it but Wilson just stares her down. “Are you going to at least wash your hands? Do you even have a mirror or a lake to see what your doing?” Her hands were filthy from the day’s chores. She’s burned off most of muck from sticking her hands into the flames earlier but Wilson knows as a doctor, (or at least someone that could have been, according to this journal) that it still can’t be sanitary. “You’re just going to increase the chances of it getting infected.”

She huffs at him. “Why do you even care?” The brunette bites down on the last of her treat and tosses the stick away. She wipes the goo on her fingers on the rag, narrowing her eyes. “It’s your fault, anyways.”

Wilson goes quiet, staring at the popcicle. Then he sighs, making a grab for the salve. “I have my reasons.” He looks up at her. “Tilt your head back.”

Willow pipes up in alarm, body going tense as one of his hands slip around her neck and cradle her jaw, fingers in her hair and running over her ear as he makes her head tilt back. Her neck is exposed. Her chest is starting to pound. “What are you-!?”

He shoves the other Popsicle in her mouth. Any protest she had is muffled by it. “Will you please hush? I need to focus.” He grumbles. Willow’s hands fly up to his wrists but he swats them away. “Consider this my apology.”

Willow says something but it comes out as a bunch of incoherent words. She’d bring up her arms to take it out of her mouth but his hands blocked her, and frankly, she might be a bit too anxious to form a proper sentence anyway. (Wilson can feel it. His knuckles brush over the spot where her pulse is the strongest and he can feel the jump against his fingertips.)

He’s already taking a handkerchief (handkerchief? where did he get that? It looked much cleaner than the cloth she had prior) and rubbing a bit of salve on it. The King hesitates. The skin looks rough, and the sight makes the tips of his fingers twinge with a memory filled with screams and fire and voices. He buries those thoughts and gets to work.

By the time Willow has spat out the Popsicle, (most of it has melted, a little bit dripping down her chin) Wilson is sliding the salve over her throat. She hiccups in pain. “That BURNS!”

“The stinging means it’s working.” He tells her, going over the line on her jugular. “Stay still and it might hurt a little less. Maybe.”

She’s still tense under him, but quiet. Debating. Part of her is afraid the hands under her chin are going to morph into sharp and dark and he’s going to finish  the job, she’s going to suffer, he’s going to taunt her for getting so close and tell her she should have learned her lesson the first time. Tell her she’s an idiot and hold her down and her lighter is right there but-

Wilson’s hand comes up only momentarily to flick the melted juice off her chin and return to treating the second mark now. “It doesn’t look like it will scar.” He mummers absentmindedly. Almost as if he doesn’t expect her to listen. She does, though. “It will heal in a few weeks. Maybe even earlier, if you keep treating it and don’t pick at any scabs if it forms.”

The brunette shuffles in her spot. He’s leaned closer, enough so she could feel his breath on her skin as he tilts forward, finishing with the second scratch and moves on to the next on her collarbone. The handkerchief goes still and she feels him pause, the hand holding her chin up frozen in place.

He doesn’t have to say anything, his body language is enough and the realization comes to her. Her collarbone was next, and Willow quickly adjusts the straps of her top on the shoulders upwards. For his sake. “They’re just boobs.”

Hesitation, then her skin stings as he’s running the salve against her skin. “I’m aware of that.” He mummers. She wishes she could see his face, (whether to mock him or just to sate her own nervous curiosity, whichever reason.)

Facing the sky, Willow notes the dark color across the sky. Her hands twitch towards the lighter.

“It’s a full moon tonight.” He must have seen her hand move. She grabs it anyway, but doesn’t turn it on. It would be rude, considering the distance between them. “You won’t have to worry about that.”

She tries not to swallow. “And you?”

“…Me neither.”

He’s quicker this time, his hand steadier than Willow’s would have been and before long Wilson is leaning back, the handkerchief and the salve placed to the side and looks her over to admire his handiwork. The moon has begun it’s ascent to the middle of the sky. “I’d be more considerate of things like this. You’ve already been sick once, I can’t imagine an festering wound would do you any better.” He tilts her head back one last time, one last look over before pulling away.

Willow immediately brings her head down, rubbing a hand over where he held her. (It sucked having to crane her neck like that for so long, you know.) and sends him a look. She brandishes the lighter between them, a warning. “What happened to ‘not being allowed to help me’?”

The king frowns at her. “The rules have been…adjusted.”

“Rules this, rules that. No one ever tells me these kinda things, ya know!” She wiggles the lighter at him. “One second you’re this murderous jerk and the next you’re-” She halts for a moment. The way he sits, the vest, the way his brows scrunch together when he looks at her. It’s familiar. “You’re normal. Mostly. What gives?”

He tilts his head. Briefly, he looks down to the lighter. “I’m king. I can do what I want.” Wilson sighs. Her face twists in scrutiny . “You’re up to something. You can’t just kiss my boo-boo’s all better and expect me not to notice that’s shifty.”

“I’m not ‘kissing’ anything better.” He deadpans at her. Then, a flash of mischief, and a sharp grin is spread across his face, looking to her neck. “But I will if you let me.”

She throws a Popsicle stick at him. It gets lost in the mess of his hair. “Sod off.”

Wilson’s grin falters, but remains. He picks the little piece of wood from his hair, tosses it away and looks at her with eyes that seem to gleam in the moonlight. Willow almost flicks her lighter on, but he fire pit was still roaring a few yards away and she’s only a step or two away from safety-wait, no. It’s a full moon. She’s safe anyways. Silly her.

In the split second she glances towards the fire pit, her hands suddenly feel empty and she whips back around to see Wilson floating a few feet above the ground. He’s got a wicked grin, and is dangling her lighter over her head. “Got your attention?”

“Hey!” She scrambles upwards, throwing her hands out but he only laughs and flies higher. Wilson gives her a little wave. “Hello there!”

Willow clenches her fists, glaring up at him with the intensity of which Wilson could compare to the sun itself. (And the sun did not favor him, he can tell you) “You snake! I knew you were up to something!” She screams. “Give it back! Stop stealing all my shit! What do you even need that for-!?”

“Oh, don’t worry! You’ll get this back!” He taunts her, twiddling with her prized possession. Willow makes a grab for his legs but the Shadow King flies even higher, almost as high as the top of the evergreens surrounding them. “I’m just _testing_ something, is all!”

Even now at this distance, she yells something at him and he’s certain, and quite amused by the fact that it’s probably a curse towards him. A bad name or two, the dark haired man finds her reaction increasingly more interesting and laughs again. She can do nothing but watch him cackle as he lounges in the air. “You fuck! Come down here and face me like a man!”

“And what, exactly, are you threatening me with? A bout of indecency ? Are you going to throw another Popsicle at me?” He scoffs at her. “You owe me answers, love! You’re not getting this back until I get them!”

Willow clenches her fist. Anger is evident. “Do not make me come up there!”

This sends him howling. “Well, unless you sprout wings, I wish you luck!” And with a little spin of the lighter for show, a lounging shadow king drifts even higher up into the night sky, listening to her cursing from the ground below.

Her figure has become so small now, it’s hilarious. Her voice doesn’t even travel all the way up to meet him. Wilson sees her shaking her fist at him, just barely, and cups a hand around his ear in mockery. What’s that? I can’t hear you over my obvious display of aerial superiority. She’s oh so, far away. Puny little ant on the ground.

Wilson gives a last chuckle and lays back. He’ll give her a few minutes, maybe a few more. He can feel the full moon’s effect on the Constant. Were-pigs in one corner of the island, Glommer’s flower blooming on a forgotten statue, Ghosts rising from the graves. (He’ll need to speak to them eventually, see if he can pry any information from them. Though he doubts they’ll be less than cooperative.)

The moonlight is still light, yes, but of a different king. Whatever magic that came with it must be in his favor, because it doesn’t sting, doesn’t give him a headache. It’s quite relaxing, actually.

He glances down towards the ground with a smile. She’s still down there, though no longer screaming up at him but digging through Chester’s contents. Has she finally given up? He knew that holding this little lighter hostage would be fruitful.

Her figure pulls back from the chest and looks up at him. Wilson can’t tell from this distance, at least not well, but she’s clearly holding something. And she’s pointing it at him. His mouth shifts to a frown in confusion. “What is she doing…”

Suddenly, she’s no longer there. Wilson’s eyes widen in alarm at the spot she abruptly disappeared, barely a second to process before a small angry woman knocks the air out of him.

Willow has (quite literally) fallen from the sky and landed on the Shadow King, and he’s too startled, arms flailing and she’s straddling him. The brunette doesn’t waste anytime between steadying herself and reaching out for the lighter. (And he’s too shocked, frozen mid-air to stop her) “Surprise! You jerk!”

She pries the lighter from his fingers and it takes another second before Wilson is also just as equally angry, body tensing and teeth bared in a warning. “What the hell?!” He screams. He has to focus on controlling his gravity, (and not the sight of her on top of him) to make sure neither plummet to the ground below. It does not look like a forgiving drop. “You’ve lost your mind!”

“No more of your bullshit!” She screams, thrusting the lighter in his face. She’s one finger twitch away from spurring a flame. Panic wells up in him. “I’m so sick of your games!”

“Get off of me!” He yells, there’s a crack in his voice. She’s grabbed the front of his shirt to keep steady, whatever she was holding prior to crashing into him has been dropped, and Wilson spies the Lazy Explorer falling to the forest below. His heart is racing, a shiver is racing up his spine.

Willow furiously shakes her head. “No! Not until you start acting normal again! I saw you do it! You’ve been normal! You were and I felt it-!”

He pushes her.

White has flashed red. The world around Willow has tilted and air is rushing past her flash, she sees his face. Shocked in horror, perhaps mirroring her own as she plummets to what certainly must be her death.

Her hands reach out, the lighter loosing from her grip as the air speeds past her and her hair is whipping behind her, the ground is rushing upwards and she’s can’t breath, her lungs aren’t working and trailing upwards as she falls and tears are rising from her eyes and there’s a _scream_ ripping out of her throat-

Something wraps around her midsection and brings her to an abrupt halt in the air, there’s panicked panting on her neck. Wilson’s arms are curled tightly around her body and pressed up against his chest and Willow feels the lighter falls from her fingers and down into the forest below. A couple of tears falls with it.

She’s breathing hard, (who wouldn't’, after a scare like that?) and her arm is still outstretched towards the spot where the lighter has fallen, the other clutching his arms and her mouth trembling. “Ha…haha.” A nervous, joyless laugh. She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m alive..?”

His hold tightens. There’s no comment as he buries his face into her hair. Willow tries to calm her breathing. Difficult, considering her brush with death for a second time and Wilson is nearly crushing her lungs in this mock-hug of his. A few moments pass, she’s able to get it to something more manageable, (The king’s breathing as slowed as well, she notes in the back of her mind. It’s warm on her neck, it makes the stinging more noticeable.)

The faint of a scared sob in her throat eventually dies, and Willow realizes she’s still in the sky. The brunette turns, ever so slightly, but the king just moves his face to hide in the crook of her shoulder. “Wilson?”

No answer. His grip on her shows no sign of lessening. His fingers are digging into her skin and his shoulders are hunched holding her. (She doesn’t know why he caught her. But frankly, she’s not in state of mind to question it.) “Wilson, put me down.” Her voice is worn and soft. “Please.”

Silence. Willow jumps a little when the ground touches the bottom of her shoes and she exhales a sigh of relief at the feeling, a surge of ease flooding her chest and running over her nerves.

Wilson still hasn’t let go. The nerves are starting to come back again, but in a different way. She needs a fire, a really nice one. Maybe she’ll sleep in it tonight. Maybe even set a couple of trees alight. She needed it, they’ll grow back before the snow starts anyway. Now that she has her lighter back she can-

Her mind stops, her heart jumps, and the man hugging her does not falter even as she tenses. “My lighter!” She panics, prying herself from his arms (he’s got a steel grip, but she manages to at least turn to face him. “Oh my god I dropped it. I dropped it. I need to go get it, please. Let me go, just let me go get it, I need to find it!” Her voice rises to a yell. He’s stares at her with wide, blank eyes. Willow pushes against him. “Wilson, please! I lost my-”

“Did it ever occur to you that you could have just lost your fucking _life_?!”

Wilson cuts her off. The firestarter is stunned into silence. “Did it occur to you at all, that you could be dead? That would be the end of you? Dead? Do you think about that, at all? Do you have any idea how close to being a bloody splatter across the ground you were? Or are you just that reckless that the only thing you care about is the state of your pathetic lighter?!”

She stares at him in shock. Wilson is panting from his outbursts, she can feel his breath on her face and she remembers that she’s still being held and promptly pushes him away. “Why do you care? What does it matter if I die? I’d come back and have to deal with you again anyway!”

The anger on his face falters slightly, the snarl he had drops and suddenly Wilson is looking at her with an emotion she can’t pinpoint but she’s too upset to focus on it. “I didn’t ask you to save me! I don’t understand why you even did! You don’t make sense.” She throws her arms up into the air. “None of this makes sense!”

She turns and runs through the camp, past the garden and past the fire pit (it’s dead now, not that it matters anymore) and barrels into the tent and curses and yells and calls him names that Wilson can barely hear over her shuffling. The King stands, watching the spot where she once stood, and turns away.

The next day is a repeat of the first morning. Because he’s not there, Willow is alone and she vents her frustrations out with a torch and couple of stray trees for a few hours and gossips and gardening with Chester about the absolute idiocy of the Shadow King. She works until her pants are ruined and her hands are covered in muck (she can burn off the dirt, it’s fine) and when dusk falls she finds it strange, disheartening even, when Wilson still isn’t there.

When she takes a break to eat a couple of meatballs and throw more weeds and leaves into the fire she runs a hand over her neck and finds that the lines are thinned and the skin is less rough than before. Clean, no blood, no scabbing. Just healing well with whatever magical properties the healing slave offered, and whatever expertise Wilson applied when he helped her.

…That would make it twice now, that this sort of thing has happened. A bit of guilt, she’s the one that telepoofed up into the air without warning. She’s the one that turned her lighter off. She put herself in those situations and he acted  accordingly. It’s a confusing realization. It doesn’t disperse the angry feelings she feels, although maybe a little. (Maybe more than that, because the camp ground is silent and she doesn’t want to admit she misses the snarky comments or even just his presence as she works.)

Night arrives with it’s usual darkness, and Willow has decided to rest her head in the tent instead of refueling the fire. Not like her, really. But she’s tired. And she burnt so many trees down today.

It’s half and hour, (maybe, time worked strangely in this dimension) when Willow has calmed down and the sound of something shuffling outside the tent reaches her ears. Chester is barking at something, and that something hushes him back, settling outside the tent and pushing open the little flap of fabric that holds it up.

A hand with a burn mark pushes the lighter towards her before quickly retreating back out. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

Willow grabs it immediately, spurring the flame and running her fingers over the opening. Not a safe thing to do, especially in such a flammable shelter. But it helps, and it makes her feel a little better. She lets the flame trickle up her fingers and cradles the object closely, taking a deep breathe. “I’m sorry I yelled at you too.”

A faint hmm is her response, and Willow moves to where she’s in front of the tent’s opening. She doesn’t push the cloth bath, she can’t see him fully, but through the little space that shows the outside world, she can tell he’s there. A smile starts to creep on her face. The fire is so welcoming. “Are you going to apologies for last time, too?”

“I can’t apologize for doing my job.” He tells her. Wilson sits cross legged outside the tent. “And you still have my jacket.”

Oh right, she forgot about that. Well, sort of. She’s used it as pillow the night prior and to say that she would miss it would be an understatement. Regardless, she picks it up, dusts it off (nothing comes from it, it’s made of an odd material that doesn’t collect dirt or water. Or burn, apparently) and holds it out to him through the opening. “Sorry. Here.”

He takes it, and she moves to bring her hand back inside the tent but there’s a sudden grip on her hand that prevents her from doing so. Not harsh, not hard like before. Gentle, like he tries, what she was used to. “I need you to listen to me, please.” He sounds low, serious. Willow lets him keep her hand. “You really need to stop putting yourself in reckless situations.”

A touch on her fingers, like he’s playing with them. Willow wonders if the moon from the night before made him go loony. “You’ve been saying that a lot lately.” She muses. “Like, a whole lot. You’re starting to sound like a broken record.”

She feels her hand drop, fingers curling with hers and notes the difference in size. He’s nervous. She starts to get a little curious. “Is this dangerous?” She flexes her hand for emphasis. His own comes down to stop it. “No.”

“What about this!” She quickly pops her head out into the dark with a grin. It’s pitch black, she can’t see a thing, not even Wilson’s hand as he presses it against her forehead and unceremoniously shoves her back into the tent with hiss. “Yes. Don’t do that. That’s the exact kind of behavior I’m talking about.”

He’s still got her hand in a grip, but a little tug tells her she’s not getting it back and she groans at him. “Okay, I’ll bite.” She teases. A unamused grumble comes from the other side of the cloth. “What’s so important?”

He runs a claw over the callouses on her palm, careful not to break the skin. The realization that those aren’t normal fingers causes her to freeze. Wilson stops and lets hand lace with hers. “Death is permanent now.”

Silence comes from inside the tent. He gives her a moment to process. “Oh.” She says. “That’s…not what I was expecting.”

“I know.”

“…Did you do that?”

“No.”

“…Then who did?”

“They did.”

“Why?”

A pause. Wilson has to think for a moment. Trying to find the right explanation without causing himself embarrassment. Not that she could see it anyways. “They think I’m not a very good King. That I’m not doing my job correctly.”

A shuffle from inside the tent. Willow’s fingers hesitate before gripping his own. “Are you?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

“Huh.” She drops the question. He didn’t sound up to elaborating. Her mind was still trying to process that she might actually find her end on this island, once and for all. And one of the biggest threats was holding her hand. “Why are you telling me this? You could have just left me in the dark-no pun intended-about the whole situation.”

Wilson brings their locked hands up to his eyes and finds that her skin looks even paler than normal in the pitch black of night. “It’s a warning.” He tells her. Willow makes to grab Bernie, clutching the bear to her chest with her free hand. The bear twitches. “Would you be sad if I died?”

A pinch in her hand. Then it stops, like he didn’t mean to do it on purpose. “You are not going to die.” He starts off. “You’re too bloody stubborn for that.”

It doesn’t fit the mood, but Willow giggles at the half-insult anyways. “Yeah, I guess. Dying was never really my thing. I’m the best survivor you’ve ever laid eyes on.” She muses. The woman could practically feel him roll his eyes at her, (a habit he used to hate, mind you, now he’s picked it up from her and he just won’t admit it) “Dying was more of a ‘you’ thing anyways.”

He seems to pause. “It was?”

The firestarter nods, even though he can’t see her, and twiddles with the lighter in her lap. Bernie has fallen to the little opening of the tent, partially outside. “Yeah. I had to save your butt plenty of times. Guess it’s really nice that’s you’re kinda immortal or something now, huh?”

“…I suppose.” He doesn’t tell her thank you. Not for all the times he’s apparently died and she’s ‘saved’ him, if such a thing has even happened. (He thinks back to the pages in the journal, scribbles of tell-tale hearts and barely incoherent sentences of fire and winter and nightmares involving a radio.) A reminder comes to his attention, and he lets her hand drop momentarily to his lap to dig through his pockets.

Willow is about to pull her hand back inside the tent now that it’s unguarded but something solid is laid on top of it before she does. “Here. The journal.” He pushes it, along with her hand, towards the opening of the tent. “I shouldn’t have taken it without asking.”

She thinks for moment, and Wilson is certain that Bernie raises his head ever so slightly to look up at him as her hand pushes the journal back towards him and pats his knee. “Keep it. Use it to try and remember all that junk you were talking about. It’s yours anyway.”

He sits dumbfounded. “You said I wasn’t your Wilson?”

“Well, not now.” Willow finds his hand in the dark and squeezes it. “But we can work on that. Together, like an experiment or something.”

A pause, and a low laugh comes from the Shadow King. “I told you reckless behavior would get you killed. You’re just setting yourself up for failure.” He raises a hand upwards, and she feels something brush across her knuckles. A quick kiss to her hand, and Wilson holds her palm to his cheek. “But I don’t think I could ever say no to an experiment like that.”

It’s a good thing the lighter has been shut off and settled on the ground next to her, because she is certain that the heat in her face could set fire to the tent alone if she willed it.“Don’t bite my fingers off!”

He laughs, all razor teeth out to show. “But it’s so tempting!”

The hand is forcefully retracted back inside the tent, and Wilson chuckles to himself as he hears her shuffle and mummer word he dare not repeat. He’d peak inside to see her reaction himself, if he could. But he doesn’t even get to entertain the thought because she has snatched Bernie off the ground and has thrown the bear right into his face.

The stuffed animal falls limp to the ground, before picking itself back up and staring at up the king. One button eye meet red glowing ones, and Wilson raises a finger to his mouth in hush. He watches in amusement as it lightly smacks his knee as Willow encourages him from the safety of her tent.


	8. The Game That Involved a Blindfold

"Really? You don't want to go back home? Why?"

Willow turns from their little kitchen area, still chewing on a meatball and gives Wilson a little shrug. He's fiddling with the Alchemy machine per usual, tinkering out little odds and ends as he always finds something else to to blueprint. Still, he's looking at her expectantly.

"I don't really have a home back there, ya know?" She tells him. A little smile comes on his face, and he points to the corner of her mouth. She wipes the food off her cheek and flicks it towards his direction just to tease him. "Never had one. Not there, at least. I do here, and it lets me start as many fires as I want."

"Within reason." Wilson corrects her. 

"Yeah, sure" She waves him off, though she laughs. "Within reason."

"But you've never really had a home before?" He pushes. Willow's laugh drops into a hesitant smile. The scientist stops fiddling with the machine, if only to grab a meatball for himself and take a seat on the log they have for resting. It's mid-afternoon, a lazy day today. They had extra supplies for some time off. "Surely you have people waiting for you back there. Family? Friends?" He makes doubly sure to swallow his food before talking, Willow see's the glint in his eye. "A boyfriend?"

The woman wants to frown and drop the conversation, but he's got such an innocent smile with the teasing that she giggles instead. "Haha. Hilarious. No, no one's waiting for me. What about you, huh?" She plops down next to him and pokes his shoulder. "Family? Friends? A girlfriend?"  

Wilson swats her hand from his vest and holds back a chuckle. "No, unfortunately. I have no one." He watches her raise a brow. "What? I don't! Don't give me that look!"

A bat on his arm, and she's teasing him. "I'm just messing with ya. I don't know why you'd want to go back if there's no one waiting for you there anyway. It's lots more interesting here."

"And dangerous, mind you." He pointedly says. A twitch of a grin on her and she's opening her mouth but he quickly speaks again. "Not sure about you, but I really do miss the convenience of indoor plumbing and not having to worry about starving to death. Or being torn apart by monstrosities. Either the like."

A glance to his vest and she can steal see a bloodstain seeping through, the color darker than the red fabric. Willow looks away and focuses on her own food, chewing the last bites. "Yeah, I guess. Still, you can't get away with much there. Bonfires, trash fires, the whatever. I always got in trouble."

"You get into as much trouble here as you do then, I'm certain." He laughs. Wilson holds the rest of his seemly meal out to her, gesturing for her to take it. He's full already, it seems. She'll gladly eat it. "I'm sure we'll figure something out for you to burn when we get out of here. No forest fires, though."

She pauses mid-bite. "We? I'm coming with you when you ditch this place?"

He shrugs. "Leaving you behind would be...ungentlemanly. The idea of subjecting anyone to this for much longer when there's an exit is just cruel." He gives her a light tap on the shoulder to suggest her. A odd smile on his face, and she almost pokes at him for it. 

"Don't worry about me. I'll get in the way of your big plans." She does little air quotes at the phrase, watching him raise a brow at the motion. She doesn't mention the unlikelihood of him ever finding an exit in the first place is quite, quite high. "I told you, I've got nothing and nobody waiting for me on the other side."

Wilson's face falls, if only slightly. "Not even me?"

She gives him a look of surprise, and the scientist suddenly finds a heat crawling to his face that he does not remember allowing. "I mean, I was thinking that if you don't have anywhere to go, you could always...I don't know," A sheepish shrug, and Wilson has a little grin on his face. "Stay with me? Just until you get on your feet, I mean. We already live together out here at this point."

A moment passes in silence before Willow lets out bubbly laughter. A sigh of relief comes from him (and grunt of pain) as she gives him a playful punch to the shoulder. "Bold move, nerd. Tired of being a hermit?"

The scientist rubs his shoulder and looks away. "Something like that."

Willow spies the flush on his face and feels the urge to pinch his cheeks. Instead, scooting to bump her elbow to his. He turns again and looks to her expectantly, almost embarrassed. She giggles again. "Tell ya what, if you can find a way out of this place, I'll consider it."

Wilson face brightens in the slightest, his expression aloof. He joins in her laughter, holding out a hand in playful imitation with a red face. "So we have a deal then?"

Willow takes it with her free hand and absently notes that his grip is tighter than usual. She shakes her head, a giggle rising from her chest and opens her mouth-

-and leaves it open in shock. Wilson is still smiling at her, holding her hand. But that smile does not look innocent, his teeth are sharp and his claws are even sharper, wrapped around her hand. There's no light behind him, nor within him.

"Did you hear me, Willow?" He repeats himself, running a claw over the skin of her hand, as if she wouldn't notice. The only safety she has is the fire roaring behind her. "You seem distracted."

Willow has to blink a few times. "I was remembering something."

"Must be nice." He tilts his head. "Care to share?" 

"No." She frowns, gripping his fingers with equal force and giving it a firm shake. The Shadow King's smile stretches further than she thought it could, and he lets his claws briefly switch from her palm to her wrist to hold. "We have a deal then."

He retracts his hands to pocket into his slacks, and Willow hopes she has not just made a grave mistake. 

 

* * *

Willow-as she has stated many times before-did not care for the ice flingomatic.

How could anyone blame her? The damn thing put out fires. HER fires, to boot. No matter how 'useful' Wilson had said it would have been, she just couldn't bring herself to maintain it. So it sat unattended for days on end, out of fuel and collecting dust in the middle of the make-shift garden (that she had now tended to the best she could, she'd brag) and Willow sometimes would forget the thing even existed. Just a hunk of metal and gears partially sunken into the mud.

Even so, with Winter just a few weeks away and the icebox looking a bit scarce, Willow wishes she had refueled it just once to save the crisp shambles that used to be the campground's garden.

Wilson had laughed at her. The plots of land were burnt to shame and the empty ice flingomatic sat unaffected in the middle of it all. It was well enough out of range of anything else flammable in the camp, thankfully, but Willow couldn't put out the fires by herself (and it sucked even trying, she hated to see the flames die under her touch) so regardless of her efforts, she was without a garden, without way to grow food until she could make a new one, with Winter right around the corner.

Wilson had only paused in his laughter to point to the firestaff in her hands, mocking her mistake and finding amusement in her misfortune. ("You should have been more careful with that thing. It's not a little lighter, you know. It's powerful." He told her. He does not utter the word 'magic')

The firestarter frowns, drops the staff next to Chester and decides not to answer. It must have been a great sight for him, her defeated expression. That's what she gets for playing with things she didn't quite understand, no matter how pretty the fire was, it was still destructive, and she risks starving to death in the coming season unless she can think of something quick.

Rabbits were always a viable option, they were still active in the Winter months. Though meat spoiled faster than produce, and going out to check the traps when it's freezing cold is something Willow doesn't think she can bring herself to do, if she is even able. Mushrooms for stews didn't grow, and she's never hunted the koalaphant by herself before. She could always set up a new garden, but those things take time and resources, neither of which she has.

So, with the icebox looking barren as it was, Willow swallows the last of her pride and asks Wilson for help.

He mocks her. Obviously. Relentlessly. And frankly tells her that if she starves it would be her own fault. But he is, above all, a gentleman (the way he phrases sounds like another mockery to her.) so he tells her that while he's not just going to give her what she needed, he's open to a deal.

The Shadow King does not elborate the terms, shady and shifty as ever. But Willow is desperate and a tad hungry, so she relents and shakes his hand. 

The next afternoon, she is digging through Chester's contents when a shade falls over her, and Willow spins her head to see Wilson looking over her expectantly. The sun is high in the sky, but he's holding an umbrella to keep him safe. A pink, pig-skin umbrella. Willow frowns.

"Not yours." She points up at him. He hums and raises a brow, as if he couldn't possibly know what she could be referring to. The firestarter stands up from the ground, glaring at the hand holding the umbrella but making no move to snatch it from him. "Where did you get that?"

"It was left out in the open." His eyes dart to what she holds. A life-amulet, the remnants of an old effigy and what appears to be an old tell-tale heart, beating in her hands. It doesn't pulse anymore like it should have, he notes. It's dead. Completely useless now.

"What is with you and stealing my things?" Willow continues. Though it's a repeated accusation, her voice doesn't sound angry. She's gotten a bit used to his antics by now. Something red, dark and slimy trails from the dead heart between her fingers. She doesn't seem bothered by it.  

"I'm borrowing it." He tells her with his usual grin. "I don't feel up to having the light ruin me today."

The firestarter huffs, rubbing the goop off onto her skirt. Briefly, she has a thought to take her hands and rub them across the front of his suit before remembering his clothes can't get dirty anyways. Maybe the skin of his face would work, but he's not exactly solid at the moment. She can see right through him. 

She tosses the life amulet and remnants to the side, the heart is still held. She notices him staring at it. "You know, I would have let you have it if you could have at least asked. For a gentleman, you're not very good with manners."

Wilson cocks his head and has a mischievous look about him. "I don't remember you asking when you stole my heart?" 

He feels a tad bit of satisfaction at the slight reddening of her face. Willow's lips turn downwards even more so. "You don't have one."

"I know." He teases her, pointing to the dead one in her hands. He watches her eyes narrow as she catches onto his joke. "You have it."

She promptly, without hesitation, throws the heart into the fire pit and sets it on alight. Wilson flinches, both at the sudden light and the unspoken comeback, his face faltering into a more neutral line. Well, that was rude. He was only trying to be light-hearted, after all (inwardly, he snickers at his own pun) and she just could not appreciate his sort of humor. She looks quite pleased with the way it melts into the flame, though.

Willow has a prideful look on her face, reaching to grab her already packed backpack and stuffing Chester's eye bone into the side-pocket. She puts her hands on her hips and snarks at him. "Whoops! Sorry about that. Thought it needed a good fire since it's so unfeeling and cold."

The King squints at her, thinking for a moment. Then Willow freezes when she see's his mouth twitch back upwards into a half-grin. "Don't-"

"Your concern is _heart_ - _warming_."

Willow smacks the umbrella out of his hand and tells him that she hates him, all the while he cackles at her reaction, slinking into the shadow at her feet. He laughs even harder as she picks up the dropped umbrella just to try and jab at him with it, the tip of the item jutting into the dirt but none-the-less leaving him unscathed. 

The woman's reactions were, for lack of a better term, entertaining. She could be unpredictable at times, timid one moment and bold the next. Wilson will dare say that she is his favorite lab rat on this cursed island. The others were not as sentient, he can talk to the hounds and the shadows just as he does with her, but none of them ever make him laugh or feel the way that she does to him. 

Not as though he’d ever tell her that. Well, maybe he might, if her reaction was to blush red then it would be fit the price. Briefly, he wonders if he could feel the warmth on her face if she were to press it against the shadow he resides in.

The thought is not sudden, though it does make the King pause in his laughter, and he's sure that if he wasn't deeply embedded into her shadow at the moment she could see the way his expression shifts at the idea of her. Though, Willow has stopped her jabbing a while ago and is making her way reluctantly through the forest, into an open clearing away from camp. (Attaching himself to her shade was relaxing, to say, he didn't actually have to pay attention to where they were going as long as she was the one doing the walking.)

Willow stops in her spot, tapping the umbrella against the ground in thought, (she was still holding it, it seemed) and scans the area. A emtpy space in the trees, a cliff side leading down to the ocean below on her right, and cobblestone path to her left. Chester has sat beside her, Wilson has spoken up from the ground. "This seems like a perfect place."

"I mean, I guess so." She shrugs, dropping her bag and unstrapping logs from the pack. She'll need to set up for a fire, just in case whatever he's wanting her to do leads into the night. No risk taking, not yet. "You still haven't told me what we're doing yet. Well, what I'M supposed to be doing."

"We'll get to that. It's nothing dangerous, I promised you." He makes the shadow shift so it looks like he's holding out his pinky to her, though she only rolls her eyes at it, making a tiny divot in the ground and setting up the tinder for the fire. "I think your definition of whats dangerous is different from mine."

"Oh, it won't hurt you. Not psychically, at least." He adds on, and Willow whips around to glare at him. He waves her off. "It's just a little game. Completely harmless. Children do it, you'll be fine."

Luckily for him, she doesn’t light the fire yet, though he knows she wants to. “A children’s game? With you?” She scoffs. “I thought you didn’t like that sort it thing.”

“I don’t, normally. But the rules are specifically made for  _ you. _ ”

Great, rules again. Vague, stupid, biased rules that she had no say over. Willow rolls her eyes and sits on her knees. Wilson’s shadow is stretched out on the grass beneath her, indistinguishable and flat. Technically speaking, she’s on top of him, but all she can feel through her leggings is the dirt of the ground. “This better not be something you made up on the spot just to torture me.”

Even in the black, she sees the white indication of his teeth. “It’s hide and seek. With a few adjustments, is all.”

The brunette does not look impressed. “How am I supposed to hide from you? Don’t you have a way to like, track me in the constant or something?”

“I won’t be doing the seeking. You are.”

Willow thinks for a moment, raising a hand and slapping it down onto the ground onto his spot, directly where his chest would be if he were formable and gives it a pat. “Got you. I win.”

The white line shifts, she’s not sure if it’s in amusement or something more akin to a frown. “That's not how this is going to work. You didn't think it would be that easy, right? You'll learn nothing.”

She groans. “Learn what? It's a game, and I don't really have time to be wasting on games when I'm out here trying to prepare for winter.” Another pap on the ground, as if to make her point. “I haven't even gotten the beefalo fur yet.”

“You made a deal, and I expect you to uphold it.” Wilson comments. Quickly, a hand slinks up from the ground, flat and black like the ones she sees sneaking for her campfires at night but it's clearly solid, and it holds itself expertly to her. “May I please borrow your umbrella?”

Willow is suddenly very aware of her position on top of the shadow and scoots away, cursing the constant and its illusions. A brief pause, and she holds the umbrella out to him. “Only because you asked nicely.”

Its when the shadow hand takes the handle away from her and Wilson slinks up from the ground, partially formed with a sly smile does Willow realize a tint has come over the land, dusk has fallen. He makes no move to open the umbrella, just twirling the handle like a scheming criminal who got away with their prize. “Thank you.”

Wilson floats back only a few feet, watching in amusement as she spins to light the campfire and back to glare at him. “You're a snake, you know that?”

“And you're no more than a little lab mouse. A fitting comparison.” He jests. Wilson uses the umbrella as a cane for a moment, leaning his weight onto it as he gives her a look over. He appears to be thinking, or searching for something. He gives the clearing another glance over to doubly be sure of the area; no dangers, really (aside from him, of course) so he gives a satisfied hum.

Willow squints at him as he loosens his tie, pulling it from his neck and twirls his finger in a circle motion to her. “Turn around.”

She huffs. “Not a chance. What are you up to?”

“You'll need to be in the dark for this.” He sees a protest coming across her face, so he's quick to continue. “Not  _ my _ kind of dark, mind you. You're going to be blindfolded. So, in a way, its not that much different from night.”

Willow gapes at him, feeling for the safety of her lighter in her skirt pocket. It's bumps against her hip, present and quick to assess if something were to go wrong, so she relaxes. If only a little. “What's the point? Why do I need to pretend its night time when we can just wait an hour?”

“It's safer for you to learn this way.”

She doesn't know what that means. “How do I know this isn't a trick?” Truth be told, she's not quite comfortable not being able to see when night arrives. He could easily kill her fire while she's blind and become...whatever it is when she's caught without a flame. Scary. She hates it.

He looks only a tad bit offended. “It shouldn't take that long, I would warn you otherwise.” She does not look impressed, so Wilson sigh and holds out his free hand. “On my honour, it's not a trick.”

Willow stares at it, debating. “Promise?”

“That's what the pinky is for, isn't it?”

A moment passes, then she takes it, curling her finger around his own. She opens her mouth to say something else but it turns into a yelp as Wilson foregoes her finger by grabbing her hand instead, swiftly twirling herself around, side stepping until her back is facing him. Something soft is wrapped around her eyes.

“Good.” Wilson ties the necktie carefully, well enough it will stay on, but not too tightly to hurt. “Now, if you would stop wasting what dusk-light we have-”

Willow interrupts him. “This is kinda kinky.”

She can't see him, but she can hear the audible surprise, and it gives her a little grin. “Will you PLEASE keep your mind out of the gutter?” He sighs, “Focus, Willow.”

She laughs at the way his voice is only a touch higher at her comment. (Embarrassment, perhaps? Oh, how she wishes she could see his face right now.) “Ok, alright. I'm focused. What am I supposed to be doing?”

“You've played hide and seek before, haven't you?” There's a soft laugh in his voice. Willow notices it doesn't sound like it has come from behind her, though his hands are still fiddling with her pigtails. “You have one goal.”

She brings a hand up to touch the fabric of the makeshift blindfold. “And that is?”

Wilson's hands fall from her hair to her shoulder, (They brush past her neck, and she refrains from flinching) and he leans close, his voice most certainly next to her right ear. “ _ Find me _ .”

Then, he is gone, and whatever idea of where he could have went has left with him. Willow stands dumbfounded and perhaps slightly a bit angry. (This wasn't fair, no was it? How do you find someone when you weren't allowed to have sight? Did he expect her to develop echolocation?)

“Hey!” She hollers out, taking a few steps forward. Something trickles up her leg and Willow feels the ease of the fire pit she just walked into embrace her. “This is completely unfair and you know it!”

She doesn't even know if he's there, if he's even listening. But he is, and a chuckle resounds from around her. “How ironic of you to say that.” He doesnt sound close. Not far either. Just there. “I'm being very generous, actually.”

The firestarter huffs and brings a hand up to rip off the blindfold before she hears him tut at her. “You take that off, you forfeit the deal.” She doesn't need to see to know he has a shit-eating grin. “I wouldn't recommend it. Unless you're confident you'll survive the Winter without starving.”

Willow calls him a name he shall not repeat. A breeze pushes past her, his voice is carried along with it. “You're cold.”

The brunette juts out her arms and flails them wildly at the air as it swooshes past, as if she'd actually catch it between her fingers. “No, YOU'RE cold! I've got a nice fire for myself.”

“And you think I'd be anywhere near it?” He asks her, a taunt in his tone. “Like I said: you're cold.”

Oh, they were hints. Vague, kinda dumb hints but better than nothing she supposes. Willow curses under her breath, carefully stepping away from the campfire in a random direction she hopes is towards him. (It's not, and he watches as she stumbles and nearly trips over a tree root.) “You're even colder.”

She stops, spinning in her heel to backtrack in the other direction, only stopping when she's certain she's walked ten paces past the original point where she's started and he's still teasing her from all around her. Heat is coming to her face, she must look like an idiot. “Where are you?!”

“Everywhere, actually.” He tells her. Its closer, to her right so she swings out a hand and finds it lacking. (Her mind was faltering. It was not night, not yet, but the blindfold did a perfectly good job of mimicking its effects on her sanity.)

“Did you know there were a few experiments that involved blindfolding subjects for hours until they began to hallucinate?” He speaks again. It's almost as if he read her mind. For a moment, Willow is afraid he actually can. “Fascinating, isn't it? When the eyes can't see what's in the dark, the brain starts making things up.”

He has the tone she recognizes he gets into when he talks about science, or inventions or just anything he finds passion in, really. Usually that's endearing. But now, it makes her take a few steps forward to try and find him faster. “Monsters, demons, worst fears and the like. It was a interesting experiment, you know. I enjoyed reading about it during my leisure time on the throne.”

Willow has her arms outstretched, searching, feeling the air for him. “The only thing that hides in the dark here is you.”A touch of anger in her chest. “You better not be floating out here! That's cheating!”

He shushes her. “True. Though, I can assure you with full confidence that I am not a hallucination.” Not like the shadow creatures, not like nightmares or the world blurring at the edges. He was rightfully real. “And I'm walking. Just like you.”

A headache is bordering on the edge of her mind, but a question is there too. It's enough to make her stop for a moment. She forgets which way she's supposed to be facing, the sound of the wind rustling through trees and the water splashing across the cliffside a distance away. All focus was on hearing now.

Willow remembers what his hisses sound like in the night, and wonders why he does. “You're not just the Shadow King, are you?”

The rustling of the wind quietens, and she can hear his answer from right behind her. “I am King. Just something else, too.”

The brunette blindly turns and feels for him, groaning under her breathe when the air is empty. It speaks to her though, and it has a touch of curiosity. “What made you ask that question?”

“The last ‘King’ was a huge jerk that treated our survival like a game while he was safe somewhere else. And the thing that kills us at night didn't stick around after the sun rose. You act like...both” A pause. “Except you stay. You're weird like that.”

He does not comment on the last part of her explanation. “It took you this long to figure out i was both?”

“No.” She's nearly runs into a tree, angrly scraping the bark and stomping blindly back towards wherever she thought she had not been yet. “I just didn't want to believe it, okay?”

The dark is not the real dark, just the trick of the blindfold, but there is confliction in his voice and a hesitancy in his answer when it talks to her again. “I don't want you to tell me why.”

“Good, because I'm not going to!” She is quite frustrated at this point. She can't see anything (obviously) and this little game of his was clearly rigged. This may have been a mistake. Willow pulls at her pigtails and groans. “Where are you?!”

Something wraps around her leg and gently tugs in another direction. Willow barely registers it as the umbrella handle before it disappears and she bolts towards the way it brought her. A hum in the air. “Warmer”

Her outburst must have amused him, there's no more pause in the way he speaks. She almost trips over her own feet, but the handle is just in reach for her to grab and in a moment of falling panic she grips it, and something pulls it upwards with her with it. “Warmer.”

It takes a moment to steady herself on her own two feet, still holding the handle and recovering from the world's tilt to hear another hint thrown at her. He sounds interested. “Warmer, again.”

Gears whir through her mind, and she uses the outstretched umbrella as a guide to the top. She reaches a hand outwards, unaware that two white specs eye it with interest. 

Something soft barely touches her fingertips, like the skin of a suit, and a chuckle resounds from the other end. “You're on fire, love.”

It's the last taunt from him before she lunges forward, only for the umbrella to fall heavy in her hands and no King to be found holding it. A laugh in the air, and it sounds utterly entertained. “You're cold again.”

Willow grits her teeth, throws the umbrella in god-knows-what direction and calls him a name that would make a sailor blush. “You fucker! You rigged this!”

“You can't rig a lesson.” He chimes. “Become a better student.”

“What the  _ fuck _ am I supposed to learn from your stupid hide and seek game that I CAN'T EVEN WIN!?”

“You're smart. Figure it out.”

The sentence is so dismissive it makes her want to throw pebbles at him again. (As if she could even aim in this state.) “This is just an experiment for you, isn't it?!”

“Something like that, yes.” Wilson answers her. “But for you? A practice.”

She has no idea what he's talking about. Her head is too clouded with images of shadows and fire and pure frustration to try and even decipher his meaning.

The firestarter feels for the lighter in her pocket briefly. She wants to pull it out and burn the blindfold away, or even just to run her fingers over the flame or just have it at the ready. Just in case anything happens. Anything. There's been no warning of night falling yet. And to say that she  _ trusted _ Wilson would be an overstatement, and yet...she has a feeling he'll keep his word.

She has some...suspicions. Ideas. Fueled by his recent behavior and perhaps maybe her own misguided faith but it was still a suspicion. And though she knows he'll probably never give her the confirmation she needed, she was very, very sure she was right. But she needed test it, just to be sure.

Willow listens for the ocean tides, and begins to take small, carefully placed steps backwards. For an experiment, and maybe a little bit of revenge.

Wilson doesn't seem to react immediately to her venture to what she hoped was the cliffside. There's still a bit of mirth in his tone. “You're getting colder.”

She ignores him and the headache invading her mind, quite certain he can see her frown and continues walking The world is slightly harder to maneuver than when she first started, and she doesn't think it has to do with her lack of sight. 

The water sounds closer, her shoes has begun to sink slightly into the ground, like it's been muddied by the water occasionally splashing up onto the grass. As if to echo his statement, the wind feels colder as she moves. “You're freezing.”

She will be come Winter, if she even makes it that far. But now? Willow keeps taking baby steps towards the edge, the smell of salty sea water washes up to her, and she wonders just how many steps away she is. The impending doom of a long, unforgiving drop is behind her. (She won't actually fall. She's knows when to stop. She hopes she does.) 

When Wilson speaks again, she notes that the confidence in his voice is missing, and it fuels her to take another step. “You are solid ice.” He sounds nervous. “What are you doing?”

“I'm doing just what you said.” Calm as she can manage, Willow takes a deep breath and a large step backwards. “I'm figuring it out-”

A solid, hurried hand and on her back, and Wilson is pushing her away from the edge. “Experiment's over.”

Her foot hasn't even touched the ground in the second it takes for her to reach behind herself, spinning in her spot to grab the front of his suit and clutch it for dear life. If she had the sight to see how close to the fall she was, it may as well have been.

For the first time, Willow is the one with a victorious smile. “I've got you!”

“Right.”Wilson looks down to her fingers curled in his shirt, right above where his 'cold, unfeeling heart’ should be, and sighs at the irony. “You have me.”

Although it's a mood reserved for him usually, Willow does not hold back her triumphant laughter, nor does she withhold any sort of taunting or boasting as he promptly takes her by the shoulders and steers her far, far away from the dangerous fall of the cliff and back towards her little pitiful fire. (Curse him for even thinking this spot was a good idea, he should have taken her unpredictability into account when he suggested it.)

“Get BEAT at your own game!” She pokes fun at him, Wilson has half a mind to pull the blindfold down over her mouth to save himself the embarrassment. But he couldn't do that either, she'll see it sprawled across his face instead. “I said it before and I'll say it again! If I can't get to you, I'll make you come to me!”

He stops her in her tracks and lets her go with a grimince. “The here and now is  _ completely _ different from that night.”

Her arms reach out to his own and he lets her use it as a guide out of his own gentlemanly habits, though her expression is the pure definition of confidence. “It still worked, didn't it?”

“Your method is reckless!” He scolds her. “Can not tell the difference when someone is trying to kill you verses sav-”

“ _ Save _ me?” She finishes his sentence for him, bringing her free hand up to fumble with the blindfold. “That's like, what? Three times now? Four?”

Wilson freezes in realization. “You did that on purpose.”

Something magical is holding the blindfold tight across her eyes, or maybe Willow is just too giddy in her victory to pry it off. “Admit it! You care! You actually give a damn about me!”

“You.” He feels exposed, and she's not even able to look at him. “You don't know the  _ half _ of it.”

The arms Willow was using to keep herself in place rip away from her so quickly she almost stumbles forward with the motion. A small panic arises. “Hey! Wait! You're supposed to get this thing off of me!”

“Do I now?” His voice is not everywhere this time, but he does sound present, walking around her like he's mocking her struggle. “The only thing I promised was to replenished your stores for the Winter if you had won!”

He sounds playful enough, but you could never be too sure. Willow grits her teeth and grips the fabric of his tie, attempting to will it off of her. “Wilson, it's stuck!”

“You were a girl Scout! Knots should be easy for you!” He gives out a single laugh. “Do you expect me to  _ save _ you from that too?”

The jab in his words does not go unnoticed, and Willow takes a deep breathe and thinks. “You promised not to let the night get me either!”

A pause, then something picks her up by the scruff of her sweater, her feet dangling for a brief moment before Willow is gently plopped right on top of the fire pit with baby flames running up to ankles. She swings her arms out, but Wilson has already floated away. “There you are! Perfectly safe.”

Her fingernails claw at the fabric. Eventually, those fingers run down the rest of her face as she groans. “If you don't take this thing off right now I'll run into the dark!”

She's hoping her lie work, but at this point in time, it doesn't. Wilson merely scoffs at her, sinking back the forest ground to stand a safe distance away from the light and smiling. “You're not funny, but fine.” He plants himself in his spot and waits. “Find me and I'll take it off.”

“Oh my  _ god-” _

He shushes her again. “Just try me. I won't move from this spot.”

Willow mummers something under her breath, steps out of the fire pit, (don't worry sweet, sweet fire; she will return soon) and moves in his direction with more confidence then she started out with. Nothing comes to her hands, and she stops. There's no wind, no other sounds than the crackling of the fire.

A thought comes to mind, and Willow listens closely. “Wilson?”

“Hmm?” There, still everywhere but...different somehow, in a singular direction. Less whispers of the dark wrapped around her eyes and more of the familiar voice that it coats itself with. Willow walk towards it-

And pauses when her shoulder bumps into something. That something chuckles at her. “Not quite an expert. But you're starting to catch on.” The Shadow King sounds pleased. “Well done.”

She fumbles to grab him before he can dart away again. “Take this thing off of me before I lose my freaking mind!”

Wilson hums, a smile on his face and raising his hands up to her own. Willow feels his palms rest on her cheeks and hopes that he can't feel the heat burning in her skin at the touch. 

“Where oh where could Willow be?” He sings before pushing the blindfold up quickly. Warm, dazed eyes stare at his grin. “There she is! The light of my life!”

Wilson unties the knot, slipping it out of her hair as Willow glares up at him as he moves his hands around her head. “Light hurts you though?”

“ _ Exactly _ .”

She smacks the tie out of his hands (and he lets her, really) so she can wrap it around his neck. The grin on Wilson's face twitches in sudden nervousness as the brunette fiddles with it. (He's still a bit close. She sticks out her tongue when she's focused on something, he realizes. It's...cute.) 

He's about to halt her sudden oddness when she stops, pats his tie and scammers off towards the remnants of her fire. “Now you're ugly.”

Wilson peers down and deadpans. “A bowtie. Hilarious.”

The woman has become herself again with bubbly laughter, and its become a bit difficult to stay mad at her. He's simmering to himself in the midst of fixing his tie when a pebble hits his shoe and he looks up to find her sitting in a newly refueled, roaring fire. It hurts to look at it.

Willow pets Chester just out of reach of the flames, (who had fallen asleep for most of the day. Wilson almost forgot he was even there) reveling in the way the fire eased her nerves and erased the strain on her mind his little experiment cost her.

The firestarter gives him a look, and Wilson feels like he knows what she's going to say next. “So...about earlier, with the food thing-” Thank science he's wrong this time. “Can I have some taffy too?”

He scoffs, watching as she sits in the fire for a few more moments, quiet as night falls across the constant.“Candy is bad for you and your teeth.”

Willow stands, straps her bag to herself, pulls out her lighter and turns it on. “So are you but that doesn't stop me, does it?”

He scoffs. “Because you have the self preservation of a walnut.” She throws another pebble at him.

Wilson joins to walk (not floats, she notices) beside her on the way back to camp. She's slept in a tent for so long now, there's no one way she can stand having to sleep on the ground again. It was always either too cold, too damp, or too hard, and left her with a sore back and a stiff neck afterwards. So there's that...but she's also kinda hungry. 

When they arrive, Willow asks him when he's going to give her what he promised. The Shadow King hides in her shadow as she fuels the fire, and for once, she doesn't mind it. He points to the icebox. “Give it a look inside.”

Sure enough, the once nearly empty icebox is filled to the brim with rations and he laughs at her expression at the realization that it's all vegetables and mushrooms. “See? I did all the gardening work for you. You're welcome.”

“...Why are there so many blue mushrooms?”

The king slinks from her shadow just to lean against the icebox, Willow's body just enough to block the light over it so he could give her whimsy smile. “It's the most scientific one.”

There's a single piece of taffy in there, and she promptly sticks it in her mouth and sticks her tongue out at him just for show.

 


	9. Bad Plans and Charcoal Shenanigans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *slaps knee* im back. are you guys ready for some mcfuckin FLIRTING?

Well, He’s not going to kill her. Not on purpose, at least. Willow was completely certain of that much.

He doesn’t say it out loud, either due to the listening ears of the shadows or perhaps his inflated royal ego doesn’t let him, but it’s become quite obvious in his actions. Recent events included, there’s just too many times he’s acted like such a jerk and yet been there for her the next (whether or not she asked for it) and often more than not, it’s not even of his own preference either. Snide remarks from him are more than enough evidence of that.

Willow is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She did it for many years long before the Constant, and only having to rely on herself is something she can say she’s gotten quite used to. Wilson’s disappearance did not threaten her survival, (Her sanity? She can’t say the same.) it was only after his sudden reappearance was it a threat, when he was beckoning her into the dark to meet a gruesome fate. (There’s a pun in that word somewhere. She almost laughs at it.)

She will never forget the day he left, nor the night he came back. The image of him laughing at her as he introduced himself, as if she didn’t already know his name, and harassing her from the darkness as she tried to ignore him in a mixed cauldron of shock and horror and betrayal.

Now it’s oddly tame. Comfortable, even, when she thinks about it. The Wilson of today is just as mischievous and mad as the night he came from the shadows, but also the man that’s currently ranting about the absence of constellations in the sky, his plans to fix that as he plucks her teddy bear’s stuffing out of one of it’s ears.

Willow sets down the charcoal she was writing with on the flat piece of papyrus laid out on the ground, and smiles at him. He catches her smile in the dusk light and stops.

Funny, how it he’s gone from being her literal worst nightmare to something more akin to a feral puppy dog. A charming one. With a penchant for science and inconveniencing her at random times-

Realization hits her a moment too late and they’ve been staring at one another for a full minute before she registers what’s in his hands. “Hey!” Willow scrambles from her spot near the campfire and stomps over to him with a frown. She reaches out to snatch Bernie but the king immediately holds it out of her reach, and the fire woman curses his height.“Didn’t we have a talk about thieving?”

His facial expression hasn’t changed, though there’s a slight mirth in his tone. “I’m holding him for you.”

“Yeah, well, he hates it.” She doesn't need to be insane to know Bernie’s discomfort in his grasp. “Let him go-”

The Bear is softly thrown at her face and she catches it in her arms as it boops off her nose, Wilson shrugging and walking past her. A curse rises in her throat but she ignores it, settling to check the limbs of the stuffed animal instead. Everything looked fine, there was a small tear in one of the ears from use but that was there before Wilson’s interference. A bit of stuffing was pooling out, though.

Willow gently places Bernie to the side of the tent (Chester is asleep inside. He had a bit of a hound beating earlier and she felt wanted to make him as comfortable as possible) before turning around to nag. Her frown runs deeper at the sight of Wilson looking over the paper she was working on previously. He runs a finger over his chin, and she thinks he’s about to start mocking her drawings. But the look on his face is not playful, only thoughtful.

“You’re handwriting is terrible.” He says. Scratch that. He’s a jerk.

She snatches the paper from him and holds it away. “It’s fine as long as it’s readable.” She defends. “I’m used to burning paper. I don’t really use it to write.”

The tiny pricks of his eyes don’t follow her face, but scan over the backside of the paper. Willow clutches it a little bit closer. The action makes him grin. “Hiding something?”

“No.” She thins her mouth into a line, takes a breath and straightens out the paper. They agreed on honesty. She did not expect him to agree with her plan, though. “Finding something.”

She sits cross legged on the ground and holds out the paper at a certain angle that’s clearly an invitation for him to join her, not that he really needed one anyways. The King sits beside her, peering over with mild interest. A touch of nervousness spikes up Willow’s spine.

The feeling goes colder as Wilson’s eyes harden. “What, exactly, is this supposed to be?”

It’s a redundant question. He knows what it is, but he wants an explanation from her. “It’s a map to the ruins.” She starts off, and tries her best to ignore his glare. “I think there’s some stuff down there that can help me. Get you off that throne, I mean.”

He opens his mouth to protest, but she’s quick to continue. “It’s not like I made this up. I have a pretty good hunch. You left this behind before you left.” That would explain the detail and the smooth lines of the map, but there’s no memory of his that’s coming to mind as to why he ever needed to make one, much less leave it here. Willow is looking at him hopeful anyways. “I think this is the place where I should start looking.”

Wilson’s expression is a twisted mix of both surprise and disapproval. “I don’t want off the throne.”

Willow doesn’t falter like he expected her to. “Sucks to be you then. I’m coming for ya.”

A twitch in his mouth, and he lays a hand down over the paper so she’ll look him in the eyes. “The ruins is dangerous and dark. You’re severely unprepared and outmatched. The last time you went down into the caves you almost died in an measly earthquake.” He does not tell mention her safe awakening at camp, nor will he ever answer her questions about it. “You’ll die down there.”

His tone is quite serious, so it’s a bit of a shock when Willow merely laughs at his warning. “I can finally be out of your hair then.” She snorts. “Gee, you’re the last person anyone would think would be telling me not to go into a deep, dark scary place.”

She picks up the discarded charcoal to scribble something down on the backside of the page. The king blows air out through his nose and shakes his head. “Your death would not be beneficial to me. I have very scientific plans in the future and I have full intention of involving you in them.”

Willow peers at him from the corner of her eye. “You’d miss me.”

His fingers twitch. “I don’t want you to die, yes.”

She stares at him for a moment. Her face is a warm color, a softer expression she gives to him than any other night, but she says nothing more and returns to the little sentences on the page. Her fingers are darkened with bits of charcoal rubbing off on them, and it reminds him of what his own fingers look like sometimes.

There’s a tingly sensation in his hands and a odd lump in his throat that’s growing more uncomfortable by the second, so Wilson clasps his palms together and decides to distract himself with the little scribbles she’s working on. He has to peer over her shoulder a little bit more, much closer than either would prefer but Wilson doesn’t shy away and Willow doesn’t (appear) to notice. His head almost rests on her shoulder.

He scans over the list she’s crudely written, trying to tell her handwriting apart, from the punctuation to the actual alphabet. A sudden shift, and Willow is not hyper aware of him and his viewing, partially covering a part of the list with her hand and scooting the page closer to herself. Wilson squints at the action. “Hiding something?”

“No.” But she says it a little bit too quickly. Her face has a touch of embarrassment to it and the sight of it returns the grin to his face. His expression makes her look away. “I’m doing…science.”

This peaks his interest. “Science?” His grin grows wider and leans in closer. “Do tell.”

Willow feels her face heat up. He’s paying more attention to her face than the pages and she’s only glad that he doesn’t see the nervous grip she has as she fumbles to finish writing. Charcoal was a crude, awkward writing utensial. A feather pen would have been much more preferable, but she hasn’t caught a bird in days. It dawns on Wilson that perhaps the smudges in her sentences aren’t due to her sloppy penmanship.

“I’m just making some notes.” She says, and Wilson is reminded of the little black notebook he keeps to himself, and the worn journal he’s been trying to decode for weeks now. It appears that he may be rubbing off on her as she has been with him, and the thought makes him amused. “Just for fun.”

“For fun.” He repeats, and eyes the paper. He reaches out a hand, (the fingertips are blackening due to the approaching night, and even Willow blinks at the charcoal stains alike.) and places it over her hand, right where she’s shielding the list from him. He nudges it away. The fire starter resists.

“It’s my map. You said so yourself.” He urges with a smile. She can’t tell if the hint in his voice is playful or conceited, but she opens her mouth to tell him to bugger off anyways.

She doesn’t get to. His other hand slips the paper out from underneath her and  the hand outstretched over her own is more than enough to keep her back from snatching it from his grip. Wilson flashes a smile more maniacal than the previously charming one and Willow inwardly curses herself and the distraction that is the king, but not before staring wide-eyed as the scientist skims over the writings as best he could.

A moment of silence, then he lets out a sound and it sounds flustered cackle.

 _\- doesn’t eat or sleep_  
 _\- can fly but not all the time  
_ _\- can become one with shadows? transparent in daytime  
_ _-hates the light, looks like a vampire_ (and a crude drawing of fangs next to this one)  
 _\- can’t die!  
_ _\- really mean, doesnt like my fires  
_ _-steals all my stuff  
_ _\- jerk but nice to me, sometimes-_

Wilson doesn’t even get through the rest of the list because Willow has ripped the page back into her safety and he’s engrossed by the absurdness of it all to properly respond. “This! This is what you’ve been hiding?” His shoulders are shaking with a chuckle and Willow finds her collar oddly hot. “I was not expecting my favorite test subject to take an interest in myself as one-”

“It’s NOT like that.” She scoots away from him in a fluster of motions and scampers to the other side of the campfire. Taunting still sounds from behind her, so she tucks the page into the nook of her arm and busies herself with preparing the fire for the night. (God she was going to need it). “I’m just noting stuff that might be important for getting you off the throne!”

Her excuse falls flat and he snorts at it. “I’m not entirely convinced that everything I read is important for this futile mission of yours.” He jests. Willow promptly ignores him, sets the tinder and flips her lighter out to spark. Night has almost fallen, and he’s still quite close. (Though it doesn’t unnerve her now as it might have once before.) “Which, by the way, you should really reconsider your plan.” He continues.

Amber eyes shoot up to glare at him and Wilson finds himself quite pleased that her face is a shade not unlike the flame to her lighter. They dart from his face to his suit, briefly, as if searching for an imprint or a reaction, before she opens her mouth again. “Why should I? I don’t see you coming up with anything better.” A finger comes out to point at him, (more alike, his chest directly) in accusation. “You still haven’t shared anything you’ve found out from that journal since I’ve forgave you for having it. So rude.”

The king raises a brow, catches onto her line of sight and brings the journal out from his suit pocket. He holds it in mockery, just out of her reach. “If I haven’t had any luck, I doubt you’ll be much more successful. All this science might be a bit much for you.” He taunts. “Though I’ll applaud you’re ‘observations’ of late. I never knew.”

Willow huffs something incomprehensible under her breathe and he finds it a sound he’d like to hear again, if only to tease her some more. The firestarter see’s the last of the sunset beginning to dip over the horizon, and she was perfectly safe with the puny flame of her lighter, but waits to set the campfire ablaze. Even Wilson raises a brow at her hesitance. “It would be much easier if the two of us worked together.”

“I have no intention of leaving the throne.” He tells her firmly. “And I have no intention of fueling this suicide mission of yours.”

“You can either help me or sit back and be a damsel in distress.” She snaps. “Either way, I’m going to find a way to save you.”

His grip on the journal tightens, and the mirth in his voice has deadened. He didn’t need saving. He was immortal. A god, even, if such things did exist, a ruler over a land he’s triumphant against. She was the one with a single life left. She was the one who could die and leave him alone. She was…

“Why are you so persistent? No one just ‘finds’ the throne. It’s a lot more complicated than a scavenger mission in your girl scout handbook.” He see’s her flinch at little at the jab, but tries not to feel bad for it. “I’m tethered there. Not physically, at least not anymore, and I’m content with that.”

Willow begins to protest but he cuts her off again. “I’m king. I have knowledge you couldn’t imagine. I’m ruler here. I’m your friend.” He sneers. His throat feels like the shadows have made it dry. “You’d think you’d be grateful to have such a powerful ally.”

For someone who is oh-so powerful, he’s taken aback when the brunette rolls her eyes at his theatrics and wrinkles her nose. “Yeah. I get it. You’re oh-so-mighty. My king! My Majesty!” She waves her free hand around in vile taunts and his frown deepens at the mockery in her tone. Willow raises her lighter for effect. “Forgive me if I don’t care for your new found royalty and power. After all, it only cost your humanity.”

Wilson hisses something under his breath, a sound belonging more to the creature in the night than it does to a king, and only cuts short when Willow sets the tinder alight and the campfire springs up in a blaze just as the last few colors of the sunset disappear from the sky.

It’s black only for a second before light fills the area again, but it’s more than enough time for him to find solace in a place where her eyes can’t see. At first, a little bit of guilty victory wells up in her at his departure, but it’s short lived when she feels something being slipped out from under her arm and the map is stolen. Willow spins in her spot to glare at the creature taking refuge in her shadow, and in turn that man glares back at her.

“I should tear this to shreds.” His claws are back again, it certainly would help him should he decide to. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t rip this apart?”

Willow looks to the journal discarded in his lap and back up again. “Because I’m going, with or without a map. You can either help me, or sit back and bitch about it.” (He scoffs at her cursing.) “I’ve made my decision. You can’t stop me.”

“On the contrary, I’m quite certain I _can_ stop you.” He rebukes. His lips are curled back into a snarl and for a moment, Willow wonders if the throne has started to erase his gentlemanly ways from him too. He does not elaborate more on the threat. It was clear enough as it was.

She wants to protest and argue his point, deadest on her plan and be reckless and do exactly what she set her mind to because damn it if it’s not for the sake of him it was going to be in spite of him. But…there’s an unfortunate truth in his threat she does not have the heart to knowledge. So she derails the subject. “I don’t understand why the throne is so important to you. You never acted like this when you were…you.”

He blanks at the last word in her sentence. “I’ve explained it already.”

“But your explanation doesn’t make any sense.” She shifts so she’s more comfortable, partially sitting in the fire. This position has become a favorite of theirs, her safely in her flames and him safe in the shadow she casts of it. Even in an argument the distance between them is still short, though there are many other spots he could shift too, the darkness outside the fire’s radius wasn’t far away.

Yet even in anger he still chooses this spot, instinctively almost. Neither of them try to think about it. “They brainwashed you, I think.” The firestarter starts off and ignores the odd look from him as she talks. “I mean, why would you ever want to stay in a dark place where they take away your memory and make you turn into some evil thing at night and make it to where fire hurts just to be near it?” She exclaims. “You don’t even have to touch it!”

“You’re getting carried away.”

“And you’re missing the point.” Willow eyes him, cutting him off. “What’s so good about being king when it means you lose everything. Including yourself.”

“I didn’t lose you.” His tongue hurts from biting down on it, and the words slipped out before he could stop it. “…and that is enough.”

A flash of emotion flies across her face, and he can’t tell between pain or shock, but it’s only present on her features for a split second. Willow opens her mouth and inhales a breath like she’s going to say something in protest or argue that he’s wrong. But she shuts it again, looks away and Wilson feels guilt in the core of his chest that doesn’t quite belong there.

He doesn’t know why, but he tries to keep talking. He’d blame his own nerves, but the shadows didn’t affect him the way they affected her anymore. It was something else. “You’d understand if you were ruler.” He said. “It’s not as bad as you think. You’d never have to worry about starving to death. Or the cold. Or monsters. You’d have all the fire in the world-”

“I would forget you.” She suddenly speaks, and Wilson regrets doing so. “Like you forgot, too.”

Silence falls between them, and inwardly, Willow wishes that she could rewind time, keep her mouth shut and just let him tease her about her bad handwriting and laugh at her face. The king himself, shares a thought not much unlike her own. “The throne is…useful.” His voice is slow, but the words having difficulty forming. “It can be a good thing.”

She stares at him. Not in anger that has since faded between the two of them, but in reassignment. “Good for what?” She scoffs. (To protect you. The phrase pops up in his head, but his mouth is sewn shut.) “And don’t say knowledge or science. Or magic. Any of that.”

Wilson’s fingers curl around the map. The Shadow King does not shudder, in all honesty he doesn’t even need to breath, but he takes deep breath in reflex anyways, and reaches for the charcoal forgotten to the side of them.

Willow squints in the low light as he scribbles something down on the backside, too dark to see what he was writing but light enough to see the conflict caught in his features. Hesitance radiates from him, and it’s unsual to see such a uncertainty from someone so collected. Eventually, he stops writing, and holds out the paper to her.

She takes it and holds it up to the fire’s light, and Wilson fiddles with the charcoal as she reads the words he’s not allowed to say with the shadows listening.

_to help you_

“Staying alive, I mean.” He quickly adds as she brings down the paper to face him. “I’m not making any promises concerning the throne.”

It doesn’t hit her immediately, but the relief comes to her as smoothly as the flames trickling up the skin on her back. Willow inhales, smiles (He will not admit to her that the sight of it provides him with relief as well) and lays out the paper between them so it’s equally. “I guess I can live with that.” She sounds resolved. “Your promises are always fickle anyways. Loop-holes, all that mess.”

He blinks. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

Her gaze flicks to the journal, to the forest, then to his face before shrugging. “I’ll tell you about it later. Have you figured anything out from the journal yet? Or have you just been fake reading this whole time?”

He’s mindlessly sharped the tip of the charcoal to a point with his claws without realizing, and it’s only when he pricks himself on the end of it does he sigh and lift the said book with his free hand. “Hardly. I don’t suppose you took a gander through it before I took it, did you?”

Willow thinks for a moment. “You never let me look in it when you were writing it and it felt weird to go through it after you were gone.” She hums. “Are you sure there’s even anything worth while in there. I mean, if it’s so important than why would you leave if behind?”

“If I knew, I would tell you. ” Wilson sets the journal out on his knee and flips through it with his free hand. A few pages get a smudge of charcoal on them in the midst of his skimming, but it makes no difference from the rest of the maddening notes in the book. Willow leans forwards to peer into his lap, lessening the space between her and where her shadow ended where he sat. He looks up at her. “Curiosity killed the cat.”

“You haven’t killed me yet.” She leans closer, ever so nosy. Her response bothers him more than it should have. The scientist raises a brow, snorting before slithering away from her shadow and she finds herself leaning towards nothing.

She spies him reappearing a distance away, leaned up against the tree at the very edge of the light’s radius. Just enough for her to see, but far enough from the light to do anything to him. (He often complains of migraines and stings from the light, and yet stays near them whenever they belong to her. If anything, he was the one being reckless, not her!)

Willow frowns at him from a distance. “Hiding something?”

He does not miss the way she mimics his tone from earlier and the irony of their positions. He only grins and twirls the charcoal stick still in his hands. “Your precious fire was giving me a headache.” His voice is smooth and she can hear a jest arriving. “Or it could have just been you.” There it is.

He returns to his light reading with a chuckle, not so much as paying attention to the book as he was listening for her groan in irritation, picking herself up and making her ways over to him. The brunette plops down besides him none-too-gracefully, and Wilson is about to mention her lack of fire before she brings out her lighter, resting it on her hip opposite side of him with her fingers inside the flame. Their shoulders are touching, and she’s leaning forwards a bit too intrusively into his lap’s view.

He doesn’t shut the book or stow it away this time. He hardly doubt she’d make out the pages either. “It appears there’s no escaping you.” He sighs, but it doesn’t sound negative.

“You’ve had plenty of chances to take me out. Don’t complain about it now.” Willow has the audacity to reach over his lap and turn to the next page, brows furrowing. There is absolutely no way she would even be able to see the brief white of the pages in this lighting, lighter or not. He wonders why she’s even trying. “You’re jokes aren’t funny.” He mummers.

She’s glints up at him. “No. YOU’RE jokes aren’t funny.”

“Untrue. I am very hilarious and handsome. It’s scientifically proven.”

Willow stares at him and bursts into out into a fit of giggles that make the whispers of the shadows seem so weak and frail compared to her voice. “Scientifically proven? By WHO? You?” She chirps a funny noise. It’s supposed to be an insult, but it doesn’t feel like one. Wilson’s voice is haughty. “Yes, and it’s royally decreed as well.”

She plays along. “By what standard?”

He straightens his posture, fixes her tie, and sends her wink that she fake gags at. “Tall, dark and handsome. Obviously the type that every lady likes. Not to mention smart, but that’s just a bonus.”

She brings her pigtails upwards like she’s mocking the shape of his hair and taunts him. “More like long, shady and a huge nerd!”

Her comeback’s life term is short lived as he pinches her nose in rebuttal and her giggles come out breathy and nasally and warm against his palm. “If that’s the case, then I hope you have horribly low standards!”

Willow clenches her eyes shut and paws at his hand (he’s gentle, the tips of his claws don’t prick her skin) until she eventually gets him to pull it away from her nose and down her face until it comes to rest at the base of her neck, holding it hostage there so he doesn’t get anymore ideas. Her snickers has softened, and she opens her eyes again to find Wilson more stoic than he was a few seconds ago.

The burnt skin, fast healing and soon to be gone scar of his on that hand feels rough under her fingertips. Briefly, she wonders if the lines on her neck feel just as rough under his touch, too.

(And it’s a quiet moment between the two of them when they both realize she didn’t flinch, and her heart is racing for a completely different reason. But only she knew that.) Willow lets his hand fall back to his lap, returning to the discarded journal. Wilson clears his throat and doesn’t look at her directly. Whatever journal page he was on before has been accidentally flipped to a random one.

Willow shuffles in her spot, decides that no, she does not want to scoot away from him, and breaks the silence. “I didn’t understand everything on the map, you know. You wrote a bunch of weird words that make no sense. I can make out what they say, but I’ve never heard of ‘splurmonkeys’ or whatever their huts are before.” She crinkles the map in question, still holding it in her lap and looks to him expectantly. “I wish I had gone with you when you went down there.”

She stops. He’s looking at her forwardly, and an odd look on his face. A kind of face someone gets when they’re awkwardly trying not to laugh. Willow frowns. “What?”

“You have…black, all on your nose.” He points at her face, careful to keep it far enough away and with a lop-sided grin. “I got charcoal on your nose.”

Willow blinks, touches the tip of her nose and groans when her fingertip comes back black. She loved old fire, especially the smell of it. But she did not have any plans to look like a clown.

This time, Wilson laughs. It’s not as joyous as her own, and he envious it so, but all in all the entirety of them right now was a much better feeling than the tension from earlier.

“Don’t feel so bad. People used to use characoal as face paint long ago. Did you know that?” He offers. It’s supposed to sound lighthearted but it almost sounds mischievous. An idea hatches in his mind that he cannot resists. “They even used it as make-up. You should try it.”

She glints at him. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

“Not at all. Hold this.” He shoves the open book into her hands to keep them preoccupied and turns his torso to face her better, one arm using his sleeve to wipe the smudge off of her nose, the other hand prepping the holding the charcoal at the ready.

Willow feels him brush back her bangs. (He’s careful to keep his fingers curled into his palm, using the underside of his wrist against her forehead.) “Be still. I’ll show you!”

She doesn’t trust this at all. He was defiantly up to something. “Gee, sure Wilson. Just go ham on my face will you?”

There’s a tiny victory in her when he pauses for a split second. “Don’t word your sentences like that.”

She scrunches up her face, sticks her tongue out at him and looks back down to her lap. Her lighter is safe beside her, she can feel the flame on her leg. Wilson a bit more in the light now, pushing it a little for himself, but he seems too distracted to notice. Or perhaps doing his best to try and ignore the pang of the light. She’d never understand it.

The journal and it’s pages glare back up at her. She stares at the writing and doodles, and momentarily forgets the feeling of Wilson tracing the skin on my face.

The words are unreadable. To her, at least. It was no doubt Wilson’s handwriting, whether he recognized now or not. Cursive was always a difficult style to read, but it would have been a blessing if that was the only thing difficult about the page.

Words are crossed out. Underlined. Some words big and others small in comparison. Some were highlighted with what she assumed old berry juice. Doodles covered the margins of one side and almost the entirety of another. She raises her lighter for a closer look.

She can’t read the label underneath one of them, but she doesn’t need to. The sketch of a radio on a staff sticks out to her. It’s paragraph is muddled and partially incomplete, leading onto the next page. Willow turns it.

She see’s another doodle for a split second, a crude stick figure with pigtails and sitting inside another scribble that could possibly be a fire, before the book is slipped from her hands, Wilson leaning backwards and admiring his handiwork. He has a razor sharp grin that doesn’t spell good things. “There we are! A masterwork, if I do say so myself.”

The firestarter blinks. (Should she say anything? Did he know what that was? He never told her before.) Her mind ran in circles, and Wilson doesn’t appear to have any idea why she was so puzzled. He tilts his head at her silence, then, snaps his fingers. “Right! You don’t have a mirror. Here.”

He reaches out into the deeper dark where he eyes can’t see either, and pulls out something blue and glass-like. Moon rock? Mirror? It looked like a moon dail…but not really. It’s an odd-circular shape, it could certainly function as one. (This isn’t the first time he’s summoned something out of seemly thin air, and Willow would openly compare it to magic but she knows that he hates that.) He holds it up with two fingers, leaning slightly backwards when she has to bring her lighter forward to see properly.

The initials W.P.H have been written neatly in black on her forehead. Willow’s face feels like it’s on fire. “I hate you!”

Satisfied with her reaction, the shadow king lets out single content laugh before throwing whatever object it was over his shoulder and back into the darkness. She doesn’t hear a shatter, and decides that whatever it was, was probably made of moon rock.

Wilson’s demeanor, as well as his grin, have returned to confidence fit for a king. “I told you: I’m hilarious.”

Willow puffs out her cheeks with air, holds the lighter in place just in case but doesn’t have the heart to rub the markings off her forehead just yet. “Was that me!?”

His face falls from amusement to confusion, and he stares at her until she continues her nervous fluster of words. “In the journal! I saw it. You had a bunch of little doodles and stuff and they were all weird and tiny and messy!”

She’s a flurry and not making sense, so she makes a grab for the book and is inwardly surprised when he actually lets her. The page is still open, so it’s not hard for her to pinpoint which stick figure is suspicious and she hold a finger up to it. “Is this me? Did you draw me fire?”

His eyes go wide and her suspicions are confirmed. (In a moment of poor judgement, Wilson had forgotten.) “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You drew me on FIRE!!”

He snatches the book and ignores the whine that comes from her. “I have no memory of doing such a thing.”

She almost dives for it again. Her worries are temporarily forgotten.“What else are you hiding in that thing!” She lunges an arm forward and it’s captured and held away by a fidgeting scientist. “Share with the class!”

“Another day!” Wilson easily deflects, shutting it closed and chucking the charcoal stick in her direction as a feeble defenses. He had claws, and by this point he knew how to use them. But this is Willow we’re talking about here. She wasn’t afraid of him. Unfortunately, he wishes she still were. Some things would be so much easier.

“Lemme see it!” She demands and he’s not quite sure about that aloof smile she has. “You wrote on my forehead! You can’t tell me no!”

“Yes, I can. Watch.” He promptly holds it firmly, so much as so that Willow couldn’t pry it from his grip even with a crowbar. Shadow infused strength was a useful tool. “No.”

He expects another jest, maybe another lunge for the book, but Willow pulls back, picks up the charcoal pencil and he stares at her as she puffs out her lips, runs the black over her it until it looks akin to a slightly smudged, black lipstick, and turns back up to flash a wide smile at him. “How about now.”

“…are you attempting to seduce me?”

“Yeah.”

The shadows are the ones who burst into laughter this time. Wilson almost chokes. “Well, you’re miserable at it. And for a book too, for shame.”

The playfulness doesn’t leave, and he’s certain she wasn’t serious. (He wonders if they joked like this, as close as such and with ever so shifting moods when he was a survivor. He’d ask, but a feeling in him prevents him from doing so) So he tucks the journal in his suit pocket and enjoys the defeated sound she makes as she see’s it disappear. He scoots an inch or so away just in case. He doesn’t put it beyond her to make a reach for his jacket.

Willow yawns, and Wilson dully notes the state of her skin and the scribbles on her face, the image involuntary imprinting in his mind and he tries not to let it, so he looks to the forest and thinks about the throne and rules and other things that has yet to be discussed.

Something is pressed into his hand, and Wilson realizes he’s still barely grasping one of her sleeves, and quickly lets it go. “I’m gonna go catch some shut eye. It’s late.” Willow’s voice has a touch of sleepiness. The King mummers something about ‘for once’ and she ignores it. She brings up a hand to rub one of her eyes, and almost smudges the corner of the ‘W’ written on her forehead. “Don’t run off on me. Again.”

He frowns and doesn’t care to give her a nod. Where else would he go? The throne room? His soul was tethered there, sure. But you can’t get science done sitting in a chair. “I’ll still be here.” Commentating Research. Science. Feelings. You know, the usual stuff.

She stands up, taking the lighter with her and pausing in the campfire pit momentarily to let the fire take away what little nervousness she had left before she sleeps. Bernie waits near the tent expectantly, and Wilson debates on making a face at the bear before Willow scoops him up in her arms and and sends a glance his way.

Her gaze travels down to what he holds, and the king looks down to find that the map has been placed in his grasp.

“Fix it for me.” She’s making a mistake by trusting him with this. “If you really want to help me, I mean. We can start with that.”

He finds the handwriting familiar, flipping it over to see her little list. A little doodle. They were alike, in some ways. He wonders if she was always like that, or is it his fault again. It made him nervous. “I still think you should give up on this.” He muses. “You will die.”

It’s not just the ruins she needs to be wary of. There are things past the ruins. Past humanity. She does not understand the gravity of her decision. He wishes he could tell her exactly what but finds the spirit to do so dampened by the look of determination she flashes him instead. “I think you’ll kill me with your nagging before anything else gets me.” She yawns again. “I mean, if you’re the King of the Constant and you’re just a big nerd, how bad could the ruins be?”

He doesn’t tell her the whispering never stopped. The shadows never stopped talking. It never got easier, he’s just gotten careless. She’s not in any less danger around him than she was before (and if anything it was much, much worse and only THEY knew to what extent.)

He’s gotten _selfish_.

Wilson looks down at the map, flipping over the to the back side and grabs the now-horrible shortened charcoal stick to add onto the list. “You’ll need to prepare for it.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” She waves him off and is one step inside the tent about to bid him goodnight before stepping out again in rush, as if she had forgotten something. “Oh right. Wait a second.”

She doesn’t startle him when she runs over, lighter tucked in one hand and Bernie in the other, the bear gives him a disapproving look towards him as Willow leans down and crouches before him. He gives her an odd look. “Yes?”

“Revenge!”

He gets a clear view of the lines on her neck when she leans forward, barely touching his forehead with her mouth for a split second before running off and stowing away in her tent.

Wilson silently touches the skin of his forehead, remembering her black stained lips and the shadows laugh at the mark she left behind.


	10. Deerclops and Snowballs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Mild descriptions of gore? A Deerclops gets wrecked.

Winter was by far, the most scientific season of them all. Snowfalls gentle, quiet and basks the constant in a white blanket. Most animals go into hibernation by this point, somewhere the Berager is fast asleep and prime for experimentation should he get bored enough. This season is a favorite of his, perhaps even his favorite when he was a survivor.

Willow hates it. For obvious reasons.

The cold is harsh enough as it is, and it’s more often than not she finds herself too frozen to be able to do anything substantiation. Those blue caps were only going to last her so long, and frankly she was getting sick and tired of eating the same nasty mushroom. A couple of rabbits would do her good, they’re still out in about this time of year, leaving behind tell-tell tracks in the snow for her to follow.

But it’s too cold for Willow to stray far from the fire for too long and the Savannah with the traps is a distance far enough away she’s not willing to risk. She only gets one life left, (A certain somebody keeps reminding her) and she’d much rather go out in a blaze of glory than survivor pop-icicle.

Another blast of ice flies past her ear and she’s beginning to fear that might actually be her demise.

The Deerclops has come _early_.

It’s big and deadly and glowers down at her with one, large eye, probably the length of herself, and swings out an arm to conjure up more ice spikes from the ground. Willow sidesteps just in time for them to shink up besides her, skidding on the ice beneath her shoe and barely managing to evade the next attack.

The fire staff is heavy in her hands, her palms are slick with sweat and the winter vest she’s wearing feels tighter than usual. Chester sits safe at a distance, having thrown his eyebone yards away to keep him safe from death incarnate. Another skid, and Willow is skidding on her knees, ducking underneath the giant’s legs as it roars.

Wilson stands nearby, his stance doesn’t sink in the snow like she does, and watches with grin. “Having fun?”

“Go to _hell_!”

Another swipe, and one of the tips of the ice spikes tangles through the very ends of her pigtail as she avoids it. A flick of the wrist send a fireball towards the giant and it bellows at the searing fur around it’s neck. “It’s only been snowing for three days. Three fucking days! I thought this son of a bitch had a schedule!”

It’s newly dusk, dark enough for him to stand openly and bright enough for her to see the amused expression he has. Bastard.

Wilson tilts his head, tuts at her language and watches with muted interest as she dodges yet another lower attack. “The Constant is just as unpredictable as you are, you should have been on your guard.” He tells her, and pulls back a little when she shoots a harrowing glare in his direction. “What? I didn’t do this. I told you, these creatures have a mind of their own.”

She screams as one of his hooves clomp down literal seconds where she was standing prior. “Can’t you make it go away? Kill it? Do something??”

“And deprive you of the experience?” He glints at her. “Hardly. You appear to have this under control.”

Willow would sneer in his direction if she didn’t have to focus so much on not-dying. Another sidestep, another swing of the staff and she’s buying herself a couple more seconds of time to run, preferably in the opposite direction of her camp as it picks at the burnt fur that’s starting to collect around it’s mid-section. “I thought you didn’t want me to die?!”

“You won’t die.” He’s barely audible over the sound of her own running. Her ears pike up to hear him continue, but he offers no other explanation than a deadpan statement.

She flips her middle finger at him before spinning on her heel and running directly at the giant.

It’s big, dangerous, and nothing Willow hasn’t faced before. Expect all those times before, she was prepared and she wasn’t alone. Now, she can feel the sting of the wind bite through her vest as she narrowly avoids it’s limb crashing down to the ground beside her, fluffs of snow and dirt flying up as she turns and scrapes the back of it’s leg, leaving a fiery scar behind.

The monster wails, flings out an arm in her direction and she’s almost fast enough to avoid it. Almost, until the back of it’s hand makes contact with her chest and sends her flying through the air. Her back hits the ground, not exactly soft but not bone-breaking either (the one time Willow will say she is grateful for heavy snow-fall) and the staff is flung somewhere, out of sight. Her eyes scrunch in pain.

Wilson’s eyes narrow at the way she catches her breathe, struggles to pick herself back up again obviously winded, and finds that her legs are non-functional.

“What the-” Warm eyes stare in horror. Her legs were frozen. Mind-numblying so, she couldn’t feel her feet, her toes, there were tingles traveling up her legs she didn’t feel from the shock before and it was beginning to _hurt_. Like all the blood-flow beneath her knee at turned to ice-water speeding through her veins. She’s frozen. Partially, at least.

A heavy stomp on the ground breaks her concentration. The staff lies out of reach. “Son of a bitch.”

A half-whine, more of breathy pant escapes her as the Deerclops eyes her down with a burnt face, it’s eye red with fury and pain as it approaches her. Slowly, methodically, knowing she’s unable to escape. A pull from her legs does nothing to free her, nothing but send a spike of pain up her legs.

She tries not to flinch when it raises it’s arm for a final blow, her eyes shut involuntarily.

There’s a roar, then the sound of ice spiking from the ground, and it takes Willow about six seconds to realize that she is, indeed, not dead.

Gritting her teeth, she opens her eyes and finds an odd sight before her. The Deerclops, in all it’s marvelous, calamity glory, was frozen on the spot, limb still raised in the air as if to strike her down. It’s face was twisted in anger and surprise. Immobile. Harmless. Like a statue.

A thoughtful click of a tongue sounds from besides her, and Willow turns to see Wilson peering up at the giant with a deadpan expression, firestaff held in one hand. “Fascinating. It froze itself by accident.”

She’s taking deep breathes, calming ones. Her heart is racing. It doesn’t stop her from baring her teeth at the blank, methodical expression he has. A flicker of his eyes to hers, and his smile turns up mischievous. “Don’t give me that look. I did nothing.”

The brunette makes a grab for the staff but he holds it mere inches out of reach. “Liar liar, I’ll set your pants on fire. Give me that!”

“I’m less inclined to give you this back if you’re just going to try and set my slacks on fire with it-”

“Wilson, I can’t feel my fucking legs.”

A pause, a bored expression flickers down to her ‘condition’ (bored, as deadpan as he can muster. The frostbite evident in her skin was actually quite alarming, as was the slight twitch in her body language, but he can’t show his concern.) Wilson twirls the staff in his hands for a moment before pointing the gem downwards. “Hold still.”

She glares at him. “Not hard to do.”

A small concentrated blast, one of her legs its free. The immediate rush of cold blood that travels upwards to the rest of her body is indefinably not a good feeling, but she wiggles and shakes the limb regardless, fumbling backwards a bit as the second leg comes free. A stumble, and Willow lands on her backside and she rubs the skin for warmth. “God, FINALLY. I was starting to think I was gonna have to chew off my own limbs.”

“Like a rabid dog?” Wilson holds out the staff to her, letting her grab the end and hoisting her back up. “It’s fitting.”

She snatches the staff from him. “That would be a lot more hurtful if you weren’t the one with literal sharp teeth.”

He flashes them, and those teeth look even deadlier. “I don’t bite. Yet.”

“I don’t know what that means and I’m not gonna ask.”

She pushes past him, testing out her balance (having your legs frozen to the bone and then suddenly mobile again was a horrible tax on the joints, you know) and approaches the still Deerclops carefully, staff clutched and at the ready. “So…Is it stuck like this? Gonna unfreeze anytime soon?”

Wilson’s gaze darts to said subject. “No. Fortunately for you, it’s stuck like that. Unfortunately for it, it’s still very much alive.” As if to further make his point, the pupil of the giant’s eye twitched downwards at Willow’s direction, causing the smallest of flinches.

The Shadow King notes the behavior. “A deer and cyclops. Intriguing combination, though one of those things is a myth. You’d think that being able to conjure ice from seemly nowhere would provide some sort of resistance…What are you doing?”

Willow is climbing up the frozen giant with stunt confidence. She doesn’t even look down at him. “Putting it out of it’s misery.”

He blinks up at her in surprise, a reflexive twitch in his hand when he see’s one of her fingers slip from an icy-handhold only to find it’s place again in a much safer spot. He curls his hands together behind him.“By slipping and possibly breaking your neck?”

“Nope, just gotta-” A pause, she makes sure she’s got a foot secured on it’s shoulder before using the antlers as a safety bar. The brunette holds out the staff, worn-down and the gem’s color faded from use, it didn’t have much magic left in it. A bead of sweat appears on her forehead. All that fire-magic could not have been good for her mental state. “Just gotta start the fireworks!”

She digs through her pocket with her free hand and pulls out a pile of something black and shiny. Wilson sighs as she sets the gunpowder in a neat pile atop the Deerclops’s head. “This is bordering on cruel.”

“It was going to kill me!” She defends, pulling back just enough. One hand on the antler, the other holding the staff, she angles it towards the center of it’s eye. Wilson finds himself unfolding his arms from behind his back. Just in case. “So can I. Would you blow me up?”

His mouth has dropped into a neutral line. Willow has a smile with a touch of instability to it. “I like you too much.” She angles the staff higher. The Deer clops has begun to radiate fear. He can’t really find it in himself to feel sorry for it though.

He’s about to say something else, perhaps something teasing when she spears the Deerclops’s eye with a sickening _squilsh_ , activating the staff and kicking off it’s frozen body. “Catchmecatchmecatchmecatchme-!!”

A hiss. An explosion. Fur, fire, and ice shrapnel spring out from the mess that has become the Deerclop’s head. The body, still frozen, tilts backwards from the impact and slams onto the ground, bits and pieces shattering as whatever wasn’t still encased in ice was now burning, sending the smell of charred flesh into the air.

Willow laughs, clapping her hands from the safe hold of a creature that should really be much, much more dangerous, and Wilson grips her tighter as he looks down at the destruction she has brought apron the land. He lets out a pitiful sigh at the corpse desecrated by the impact. “You have no restraint.”

She’s bubbly. Cold, a little unstable, but clearly enjoying the fire that’s spreading through forest and melting the snow. “More than you do!”

“On the contrary,” He avoids the light, stepping away from the puny flames that brighten up the area. The hands, thankfully no-sharpness to them, hold her firmly against him. “I’m the very definition of restraint.”

There’s a cut-off screech, a ‘poomf’ noise and Willow doesn’t realize he’s brought her over to a particular large mound of snow until she’s unceremoniously dropped in it. He’s laughing at her.“Except now. For now, It’ll be an exception.”

He’s still in a chortle by the time she’s able to break free from the snow, wet cold seeping through her clothes and Willow has to stumble away from the mound, shoes sinking into the snow as she makes her way to the nearest tree. A tut sounds from behind her but she ignores it, promptly digging out her lighter and setting it on fire. And by extension, herself. “Uncalled for!”

“Your sudden aerial assaults on me aren’t done without much of a warning either.”

With her hair in flames and her skin basked in the warm glow of the fire, she looked ethereal against the white of the landscape. Like a myth he read in a story once, or the clear, precise image of what fragments of memory he has left. Full of light and life.

And fury, it seems. She’s hurling something at him.

Wilson moves his head a few inches to the left, barely avoiding the projectile that soars past and splashes against the ground somewhere behind him. He glares at her with an unamused look, and Willow appears not to be deterred by her miss. A second snowball is already forming in her hands. “Having _fun_?”

She scoffs at his remark and throws the second one in his direction. A fluid step to the side prevents it from hitting the front of his suit.

The firestarter is already scooping up snow again to make a third, little giggles escaping through her. “Oh, I’m having loads of fun.” She packs the ball tightly, springing her arm back. “What about you!?-”

She looks up, throws it. The space where she was aiming is now empty, light having crept up upon it’s place as her snowball splashes pitifully against nothing. Willow lets her arm lower, narrowing her eyes. “Where did-”

Something cold smashes into her backside and she yelps, leaping up into the air for a moment for spinning around and glaring at the assailant. Wilson stands triumphant, another snowball held in hand.

“You are picking the wrong battle.” He has a sinister, knowing grin. “This is a good opportunity for lesson number two, however.”

There’s a weird feeling, a fluttery one, when her surprise melts into a happy happy look, well equipped with a goofy smile. Willow bends down to scoop up more snow as she stares at the shaded spot he’s stationed himself in.  The instability is still there, but he wants to entertain her. He wants to engage with her.

A step backwards and the snowball she’s thrown at him lands pitefully at his feet, spashing against his shoes. Willow mocks him from a distance. “Everything is so serious to you now. Why can you just relax for a little while-?”

He disappears, reappears, and a tumble of snow drops down apron her head, soaking through her hair. Willow screams and flails the white off, a resounding chuckle coming from around her. “I’m perfectly relaxed.”

The woman huffs, glares up at him, and darts around the burning trees to where he and his eyes cannot follow.

Wilson frankly ignores the shadow creature’s stares at him as he laughs, weaves in between the spaces where the light cant touch him to toss snow at her. He doesn’t hit very hard, but she still sounds out an ‘oof’ as one clips her in the shoulder. “Running won’t save you. How well can you dodge?”

She ducks, and surprisingly enough one soars over her head. Immediately she springs back up to throw another and it barely whizzes past his ear. “Good enough!”

A snowball smacks her in the chest and she stumbles before catching her footing. A louder laugh escapes her, Wilson finds himself wishing to hear it more. “I disagree! You’ve made yourself quite the target!”

Another bout of laughter as she avoids his next throw, and Willow pauses for a mili-second as she searches for his face in the shadows. He’s smiling still, but it’s different. All sharp teeth nonsense but innocent and genuine, the laughter coming from him matches it. Like he’s actually happy. Like how he was before.

She doesn’t dwell on it for much longer as she see’s the King aim another snowball in his direction. “What’s the matter? Too much of a coward to get any closer?” She taunts him.

“It’s be a cold, cold death sentence for you if I did!” He mocks back, but there’s no threat in his tone, only teasing. “But if that’s what you want!”

Willow dips behind a tree, one that had yet to burn, on the extent of the forest fire’s edge but soon in line to be scorched, and crouches behind the trunk. A hiss resound in the air, and for a moment, a hard fleeting moment she feels tiny spark of fear (it’s numbing though, she’s a bit too touched to really feel it) and suddenly cold is seeping through the back of her shirt.

A giddy yelp and she lunges forward, clawing at the back of her shirt. Wilson snorts at the snow melting down the back of her neck. “If those were my hands, you would have been dead.”

The snowball she throws in retaliation barely clips his ear. “Come over here and face me like a man!”

He slinks away, reforms behind her and she barely has enough time to whip around before another snowball is thrown against her chest. “This lesson is doing horrible as it is. Provoking your attacker won’t make it any better.”

A laugh, a lunge, Willow scoops up a mess of snow slipping through her arms and sloppily tosses it in his direction. It’s not packed, the white flying up into the air like flurries but he side steps and circles her like a lion would, watching her fumble to make a new one.

“Oh yeah?” She ducks out of sight, scooping up four or five premade ones before whipping around the base of a tree. “What exactly am I supposed to be learning?”

A hard throw in his direction. It’s futile, as usual, and Wilson tuts at the expression she gets when she see’s he’s avoided it once again. “How to dodge me.” Hands reach down and form a snowball effortlessly. His eyes are as white as the snow blanketed around them. “You can’t run in the dark. You can’t hide from it. I can only _miss_.”

Willow pauses, furrowing her brows together. “Wha-”

He disappears for a third time and she has the common sense to whip around and narrowly avoid another attack on her neck from the King. A victorious smile comes to her face, but Wilson simply tosses the snowball upwards and it splashes down atop her head. “Dead.”

A snort, the firestarter doesn’t bother to get the gross feeling out of her hair before sprinting off in a second direction, breaking the stride to spin on her heel and throwing a snowball towards him. He’s watching her closely, oddly so, and she finds the slightest bit of satisfaction at the way he’s eyes widen a fraction as the snowball comes a little bit too close for comfort before he ducks, slinking away to god-knows where.

Willow stops in her place and scans around her, ignoring the cold sting of her fingertips as she holds two in hand. Another swish of the air around her, she whips around just to see white mushed against her forehead and she bellows out in child-like anguish. Throwing her own projectives do nothing, he’s already slunk to somewhere else.

A taunt resounds from the dark as she wipes the snow from her face. “Dead!”

She hiccups, spying something white coming at her from a distance giving her barely enough time to duck her head, skidding on her knees behind another tree to gather her bearings. She is not given the privilege. Wilson follows close by, and another snowball lands it’self on her shoulder as she flings her arm out, feebly trying to fight him back. “Dead! Again.”

Though Wilson looks to be having fun, there’s a sort of resignation in his tone of voice that’s close to mimicking disappointment. It hardens slightly as she brings together a batch of snowballs, hurling them in his direction. “You know, you’re supposed to care more about not getting hit than exacting your revenge.”

She ignores him. “This game isn’t really fair since you can, I dunno, freaking dematerialze?”

“I’m trying my best to make it fair.” He shrugs. “And you started it.”

Willow glowers up to him, her bottom lip sticking out in a pout. (It’s cute. She’s cute. Oddly so when she’s frustrated.) before her mouth turns up into a mischievous smile and she takes a few step backwards from him. He gives her an odd look as she darts away, a bout of giggles resounding from the place where she runs to.

His lips twitch into that usual smirk as he finds her heartbeat somewhere in the shade of an unburning tree, the sky darkening to it’s last lights over the horizon as he appears in the spot, arm already raised with snowball at the ready. “I said you couldn’t hide-”

He stops. There’s nothing there. His smile drops with his arm and the king looks dumbfound at the ground where he’s certain she should be. “Willow?”

A battle cry sounds from above him and he has barely enough time to glance upwards into the branches of the pine tree before she smacks into him, bringing them both to the ground. Willow doesn’t waste time securing herself over his waist, legs on either side of him with arms raised in triumphant and a mound of snow packed into a rather large snowball held far above his head.

She gives out a boasted laugh at the wide-eyed expression and the slack jaw the King has been reduced to. “Wait-!”

She drops it directly on his face, covering it completely and Wilson’s back hits the ground with his arms splayed out. Defeated, disgraced, and at the utter mercy of the firestarter that has captured and straddled herself on top of him giggling, piling up more snow onto his chest. “Now it’s a fair snowball fight.”

A muffled grumble of something comes out from underneath the snow pile she’s created and she doesn’t have the strain to be able to decipher what he’s saying. “How does it feel to get bested twice? Huh? Feeling a little less ‘kingly’ yet?” Willow jests, hands on her hips.

There’s dark shapes in her vision, growing closer, but she’s too high on her victory to care. It was the most fun she’s had a in while. “Don’t try to teach me how to dodge when you can’t even dodge me!”

Another grumble about something being ‘inappropriate’ before the scientist goes silent. His body is a odd mixture of lax and ridged underneath her, sunken into defeat. A digit on his hand twitches at his side and for a moment she thinks he’s going to throw her off. (But under the snow, he thinks of her falling through the sky again and finds a second reason to be reluctant to do so.)

Silence, nothing but the crackling burn of the forest a distance away and the occasional breathy giggle coming out from her throat. The adrenaline is starting to wear off, the air around her mouth is clouded in the cold. “Did you die or something? Did I kill you?”

She does not receive an answer, and the smile she has faulters. “Wilson?”

A hand comes up, pushes her shoulder over and her back is pushed into the snow. Willow yelps, hair splaying out and arms coming in reflex as Wilson pins her to ground, raises a snowball into the air and returns with that sharp, innocent grin. “Dead.”

A hiccup comes from her. Neither of them move for a moment. They both stare. Glowing eyes scan for her reaction and find that her facial expression is priceless. Eyes wide and face flushed from the cold, mouth parted open. Her lips were a bit chapped, no doubt. But they looked soft, pink and close. It wouldn’t take much to get a better feel of them. It wouldn't.

Wilson blinks. A small sting, an annoyance breaks the thought. (Uncalled for, unwelcome thought.) and he looks down to see her lighter held across her chest, staring up at him with the expression that he can now label as fear.

Eyes still wide, her gaze darts to his hand before back to his face. He looks at it, finding claws instead of fingertips sinking into the snowball he’s packed in hand. Held right above her. Just right above her head, arm poised to strike.

He can hear her swallow. “Your eyes are red. Like fire.”

Wilson drops it, letting the snow plop to the side and doesn’t look at her. At least, tries not to. The colors in her face are a lot more prominent in the low-light and the sound of her heart racing was not helping his focus. So he wracks his brain, searching for a response. Something calm. Something non-conspicuous.

“Your lips are blue.” That was not inconspicuous. Apparently it’s the only thing he can think of.

She brings the lighter closer to her face, the flame illuminating the pink in her cheeks and the warm amber in her eyes. It takes Wilson by surprise, he thinks, the time it takes him to realize that he’s still holding her against the snow. (Obviously, not good for a freezing human.) and pushes himself backwards so he’s no longer on top of her, clearing his throat and straightening his tie.

Willow sits up straight. She’s squinting at him. “You okay?”

The question takes him by surprise enough that his hands freeze around his tie, staring down at her with what he hopes is an eye color that’s less…revealing of intention. “Why do you ask?”

“You’re kinda…” She brings a free hand up, her fingers moving in opening and closing motions. Like she’s curling them around a familiar teddy bear. “Twitchy.”

How bad does he have to look for a cold, hungry survivor to ask the literal King of the constant if he was okay? How nervous did he need to appear? How shaken did he need to seem?  How much of this facade did she break down in order to dare ask him something so useless of a question. Of course he’s okay, he can’t die. The cold doesn’t bother him. The cold is definitely _not_ what’s bothering him.

The whispers of the shadows bring his attention to the approaching creatures only a few feet from where Willow sat, the firestarter oblivious to the danger. Eyes set solely on him.

Wilson grits his teeth at the translucent Terrorbeak. “I should be asking you that question.”

“Well, obviously, I’m freezing to death.” She shudders as she says this, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “And I’m hungry. And my leg hurts. I kinda forgot about the Deerclops clipping it from earlier.”

He straightens his posture and offers an arm out as all gentleman should do. Claws furled into his palm. For once she doesn’t make a snide remark or bat him away, but grabs his forearm and hoists herself up from the ground. Though she’s standing, she’s reluctant to remove her hand from sleeve. If Wilson had an issue with it, he doesn’t say anything.

The lighter is in close proximity, but he’ll dare say he’s gotten used to the sting by now. The exposure didn’t affect him as much. Still annoying. Still gave him a headache for too long. Still made his skin feel like he was hovering it over a hot stove just within the light’s radius. But he’s used to it.

“Ah, yes. The Deerclops you’ve oh-so elegantly blown up.” He sighs.  “I wouldn’t expect anything salvageable from the explosion. Whatever scraps that would have been left over should have been devoured by the hounds by now.”

She sticks her bottom lip out, breathing out clouds in the air. “Even the eye?”

“Especially the eye. You shickabobbed it.”

Willow wrinkles her nose at him. “Okay, maybe I went a little bit too far. But it’s your fault too. You should have stopped me.”

“And face the end of your wrath instead? I’d rather not be on the receiving end of that firestaff.” He scoffs. Pricks in the dark, white, no longer warm (She liked the red. She doesn’t know why, but she liked it. Why did he act so weird about it?) glance behind her at something she doesn’t turn to see, but the firestarter has an pretty good assumption at what he’s looking at.

Looking out, the forest fire has died, leaving charred trees in it’s wake. Willow lets out a sigh. “Cold, hungry and crazy. This is the worst date ever.”

The man beside her tenses, sending her a raised brow before his expression neutralizes at the teasing grin on her face. “Kidding.”

“You’re going to freeze to death if we remain out here any longer. That, or get torn to shreds by the shadows. I don’t recommend it.” He chooses not to entertain her jest. (And she snorts at his complete avoidance of an response.)

He leans a bit away, farther from the lighter, but doesn’t pull his arm out of her grip. “It’s a bit of a walk away and I know you can’t see very well. I’ll escort you.”

Willow snorts even louder. “Oooooh, such a gentleman!” She laughs. It’s touched a little by insanity, but it’s sounding more and more like herself. She pokes at him and the King thins his mouth into a line. “Chester might get Jealous. Never had an ‘escort’ before.”

The Terrorbeak falls back a bit, watching her. Waiting. Wilson refrains from sending it another look.

“Obvious. It’s only proper after a ‘date’, as you should know.” He does air-quotes with his freehand and smiles when Willow snickers at it. “I’m not surprised that you don’t.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what you think it does.” He leads her forwards, walking back towards the area of the Deerclop’s carnage and where Chester’s eyebone sits. Camp wasn’t too far away, perhaps a five minute walk. Wilson lets himself get distracted by the shapes watching them.

He’s sure she can’t see all of them, maybe one or two, perhaps Mr. Skitz who has trailed besides them like a lost puppy in curiosity.  The voices are loud. They all repeat the same thing.

Willow decides to ramble about things, anything to keep focus. She points out him walking instead of flying. How the cold wet still stung her neck where he dropped the snow. How her stomach rumbled. A glance at him, and she mummers something about her favorite color.

“I had fun, by the way.” He tells her out of the blue. Willow stops rummaging through Chester to turn to him, holding Bearnie to her chest with a shiver. “Even though you completely failed the lesson.”

She sniffs at him, tucking the teddy under her elbow, lighter in the other hand. He holds out his arm for her again and she takes it, the two continuing their walk, this time with Chester following close behind. (She makes a joke about a ‘romantic midnight stroll’ and Wilson nearly trips over it.)

“Your ‘lessons’ are dumb and don’t make sense.” She chimes with confidence. He’s about to but in and tell her that they would make sense if she would actually pay attention, but is cut off. “I had fun too. I kinda forgot you were King there, for a while.”

It’s just a statement. Perhaps even supposed to be a compliment. But for some reason, it’s stings. “Noted.”

The Terrorbeak has followed them all the ways into camp, remaining present even as Willow flared up a bonfire and curled up inside of it, clearing the last bits of insanity that was creeping up on her mind. Wilson sits safely in the shadow of the tent, eyes following where it stood.

Ignoring it momentarily to bring out the journal, the scientist can’t find the focus to be able to shift through the pages. The whispers he’s drowned out are prevalent again, more so than what he’s trained himself to be used to. A few minutes pass. Willow has passed out in the flames and Wilson glances up to see the shadow creature in the same spot it was prior.

He glares at the Terrorbeak in suspicion, eyes flickering to the sleeping body in the fire-pit then back to the creature again.

It’s not watching Willow. It’s watching him.


	11. Shadow Pieces, and Hugs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilson feels off. Willow fights Chess Pieces. Butterflies are everywhere. (literally)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Canon-Typical violence, blood, horror mention. And uh, feelings.

It takes time. Truly enough time, he notes, as the Winter season carries on into the next season, snow still on the ground in splotches and the air not as bone chilling cold as it was before, but not quite spring just yet, when he realizes that Willow might (emphasizes on 'might') start fully accepting him as his rightful position as king.

She still makes the jabbing comments towards him. The snide remarks haven't left, nor the lingering disgust in her expression when she watches him do something morally questionable to the wildlife in the namesake of science, or his claws seemly appear from nowhere, or even if she's just in a particularity bad mood that day.

During these times, her nose scrunches up in the slightest and her eyes narrow at him. If she's hoping these looks bothered him, she'd be hoping wrong. It's long since he's gotten used to them, and to boot he finds her little expression charming. Cute, even. He mentions that once and the glare he receives in response is laughable.

Still, despite her dislike for his new found royalty and her apparent 'mission' to save him from the throne (The thought of her goal leaves a sour taste in his mouth, and he refrains from bringing it up to mind again.) She's become surprisingly...tolerant of it, since his arrival back to her.

How long has it been now since his return? Four months? A full constant year now, if he remembers correctly.

Wilson is thankful he remembers correctly. It's not often he's allowed that privilege.

Willow used to make fun of him for that little detail too. Occasionally a story will be told, hands animated while she's telling him this event that he may or may not have any recollection of. (Do you remember that time when we tried to capture a hound? No? Oh, okay.) and these stories usually end with her attitude dampened and Wilson's mind wandering to the memories he can't grasp again.

He still listens though. She makes little motions when she talks, either ranting about a season that particularly hard or some other time the two of them did something that held a funny memory. He sits cross legged, hand on his cheek and watches as she paces the camp or repairs her gear or whatever she may be doing as she talks about little tidbits of their past together. Her words are pieces of a history he lost, a puzzle he's scientifically obligated to put back together, and Willow would be the glue.

(She stops mid-story to catch him staring, fidgets when his gaze doesn't let up before brushing him off and changing subject, hands dropping to return to the spear she was busy roping.)

Willow used to be very upset at his lack of memory. (She still is.) But now? She's grown more tolerant. More _curious_.

Wilson isn't sure if that curiosity is going to get her killed.

She brushes off his warnings with a smile and tells him to "fuck off to whatever dark hole he's climbed out of" as she's so elegantly put it, and he knows she doesn't mean it, because she's made way too many honey nuggets for one person and there's a silk blanket thrown on the ground in the shaded spot where he usually spends the daytime.

He pointedly reminds her that he doesn't need to eat as he chews, and Willow tells him to shut up and enjoy her cooking. (A little burnt. There's a sense of nostalgic that comes with the taste, but he doesn't know where it's coming from.)

Things are very domestic. Calm. Peaceful, even. At least, that's all what the firestarter needed to know unless she dare distract herself with even more heroic pursuits. He wouldn't put it against her to speed up her process of preparation for the ruins if she knew about the little things the king did himself. What he 'lives' through.

The voices never stopped. The urge never stopped either. But gods if it isn't so _inconvenient_.

Even in quiet moments, when she's on the verge of sleep safely in the bonfire she keeps roaring in camp, he'll hear Them. Persistent little buggers, voice like chalk and running water and snakes and other soft, slicing sounds that piece his ears and break his concentration at the absolute worst of moments.

He's picking at the corners of faded pages in his journal, hidden safely away behind the shadow the tent when the voice is suddenly piercing. _Get her._

And it takes him a moment, just a few seconds to recollect his composure, the voice had taken him off guard (No, he was not surprised. Caught off guard.) and without any prompting from him, his head turns towards the flames that Willow has tuckered herself away in, powders of ash in her hair as she naps. _Get her._

His hand tingles, morphing into a shape not defined by sharpness or claws, but lack of light. The radius of the fire still burns his nerves, the shadows he calls skin is not deterred by it's light though. Wilson blinks. There's a terror beak not far from camp, watching. Willow, however, is in a good state of mind and getting the rest she definitely needs, so it stays away.

Perhaps Wilson is too distracted by the presence that he doesn't register his own daze as he feels a really sudden, sharp pain in his tongue. Instinctively, he brings up a hand to touch his lip, but nothing comes to his face. Still in a daze, he realizes. Lost in his thoughts. Lost in the voice.

In the beginning, it was all background noises. Advisers to the King. There's urgency in it's tone, not begging, demanding him to do as he's told. He's king now. He'll decide what rules to follow on his own accord, thank you.

(But lately he's been told that he's not a very good king.)

(And he can make excuses for keeping her alive in the name of science. Taking care of her when she was sick, when she was unstable, the warnings, the apology he's not allowed to tell her.)

(And he could go on for eternity like this with the static and the dark and the uncertainty of who he was or who he was supposed to be because he knows that without her, he'd be incredibly bored.)

(And boredom is the only concept They understand and the only excuse They allow, because They, just like Wilson himself, constantly entertained.)

(And it's a fascinating moment when the mind is able to differentiate between Them and him, where They end and He begins and there's a small feeling he has that tells him that he's not supposed to separate the two.)

The pain strikes again and Wilson realizes his hand has slunk across the ground in shadow, inching towards the life of the fire Willow resides in.

_Get her_

It gets worse by the day now.

_Kill her_

Near the tent where he sleeps, Chester barks awake. It's startling.

A prickly feeling in his fingers. The fire is mere centimeters away from his end when he gathers enough sense to yank it back, shadows retreating and returning to the ends of his wrist. The king stares down at his skin, the claws that returned, the sudden loss of control just now registering in his mind. Delayed.

The feeling of his thoughts coming back to him in a sudden, jerky sensation. Like a record playing without interruption until someone rips it off of the player without hitting stop. Scratching at his mind. Playing him.

Something wet and warm fills his mouth and starts a small line to trickle down his chin when he hears her voice. "Wilson?"

A blink, and he drops his hand into his lap, relaxes his shoulders best he could and finds Willow stretching out a yawn from her space in the fire. She rubs her eyes, squinting at him through her sleepiness. Wilson quietly notes the ash that's smothered on her cheeks and neck.

He's grown fond of her signature looks, but the one she's giving him now is one he hasn't encountered yet. "What's up with you?"

The gentleman in him knows full well not to tell the truth. Dishonesty was sour, but he's gotten good at it. "I should be asking you that. It's far too early in the morning for you to be up." An absentminded gesture towards the stars still in the sky. "I didn't mean to wake you, if that's what you're accusing me of."

The tone of voice he has is so casual, relaxed. The expression on Willow's face is not. She's staring at him weird, gaze lingering on his face far too long than Wilson finds is comfortable. Normally, he wouldn't look away, match the intensity she gives him, but right now there is something in his chest that doesn't really feel like it belongs. (It feels like shame and nervousness and other things that the King of the Constant should be immune to.)

A moment of silence passes before he hears her again. "You're bleeding..."

The man turns away from the ground, opting to stare at her in question before the dawning realization comes to the fact that, oh, was that what he was tasting. It didn't taste like blood.

Willow stands from her spot in the fire, Bernie left near the pit with her lighter tucked in the palm of her head. The way she approaches him is so natural, unafraid. Very different from her stance a few months ago. "You're bleeding? At least, I think you're bleeding. It's not red."

The pooling in his mouth has diminished, the taste is not blood. Not at all. Something worse. The grass flattens underneath her as she sits down next to him, watching at he raises a hand to touch the skin of his lip. He pulls it back and finds no stain decorating the claws. Black, dark. It blends into the skin of his hand, not even he can see it.

He must have stared at it for too long, because another sensation touches his face and he jolts (not really. maybe just a little) at Willow pressing fingers to his mouth and pulling her hand away, fingers coated in black liquid that's translucent against the color of her skin.

Her brows furrow at it before questioning eyes meet his own. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

Her sentence isn't supposed to come out that harsh, and he knows it. His tongue rides over his teeth and Wilson quietly notes that the canines he's been 'blessed' with are capable of doing more damage than he realized. "I bit my tongue. That's all."

She wipes her fingers off on skirt, setting the lighter and it's small light radius down beside her. Part of him wants her to set it between them, the other part has the urge to snuff it out. "So, you're telling me that you're bleeding nightmare fuel?" She points his chin, her fingernail scraping off a bit more of the gunk and flicking it off into the darkness. "Are you okay?"

He doesn't like the tone of voice she's using. She was the survivor. Not him. _Not him._ He wasn't surviving anything. "I'm fine."

She lowers her hand, tilting her head. The stray hairs on her face brush against the ash marks on her skin, leaving behind little trails of flesh he could tear into. "You're eyes were all weird again. When I woke up I mean."

The daze breaks again. "Were they now?"

"Red." She makes little flame movements with her fingers. There's a hint of a yawn in her voice. "Little pinpricks of red. Like fireflies made of...well, actual fire." Willow is obviously not fully awake yet, not by the way she speaks or the way she leans a little forward towards him in sleepiness, he can sense it. "Pretty."

Expectation for an answer is in her tone. None of what she's saying is a good thing. Wilson musters up a smile, not flashing his teeth, because he doesn't know how caked with nightmare fuel they might be. "Are you telling me I'm pretty?" Change the subject.

The bottom lip she sticks out in a pout is a distraction he focuses on instead of the numbing throb still echoing in his mouth. "What spooked you?" She asks, rolling down one of her sleeves. "Is this an experiment to see if you'll grow back your tongue if you bite it off?"

Usually he has something as equally as witty to throw back at her, or even a random scientific fact, perhaps on specific species with regenerative abilities, certain breeds of lizards, sharks, snakes, all the mess. But the usually quick fired mouth he has is a bit pre-occupied at the moment and Wilson doesn't know whether he should freeze still or lean away as Willow raises her cloth covered wrist up to his chin.

A hand comes to grasp the underside of the jaw, tilting it upwards without his permission as she runs the end of her sleeve over his mouth in an attempt to do away with the nightmare fuel. "Hell, you look like a mess."

He would protest. He wants too, really. But he keeps his mouth shut purely out of the thought that the fabric of her sleeve would snag and tear and he's accidentally rip open her wrist with his teeth. So he just frowns really hard. Like, comically hard.

Willow eventually looks up from her work and see's the unhappy face, to which she responds with a sleepy laugh. "What? You weren't doing anything about it." She jabs at him, bringing down her hand, much to his relief. "Sorry I don't have a fancy handkerchief I can summon out of nowhere like you can."

White eyes flicker outwards. The Terrorbeak that has witnessed the little act has taken a step closer, whether in curiosity, entertainment or distaste he wasn't sure. It was quiet for now.

Wilson glances down to the lighter just in case before bringing up a thumb to prod a the mark in his lip. His tongue wasn't the only victim, it seems. "I'm a grown man, mind you."

He doesn't miss the way she rolls her eyes. Willow raises her arms to the sky in a stretch, letting out a yawn and rubbing out the last of the sleep out of her eyes. She smears ash across her nose, an ugly grey against the warmer colors that dot along in her skin. His hand twitches for the said handkerchief in his pocket, but he doesn't take it out.

"Says the guy who's doing stupid stuff even as a royal hot shot now." She breathes out a sigh, but a smile accompanies it. He watches as she raises a finger, pointing to her own mouth in show. "I thought you'd be finished the self extermination after so long."

"I was distracted." He defends. There's a notable effort it takes to not focus on her lips. "Call it human error."

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call that 'human' error..." She does little airqoutes. Wilson is torn between faking offense and conguring a hideous, horrific expression to scare her before she waves him off again. "Just...whatever that was, don't do that again. Seeing my friend's teeth drip with nightmare fuel is NOT the kind of image I want to wake up to in the middle of the night."

The king's head tilts only a fraction, and he gives her a sly wink. "I'll keep that in mind when I think you're due for another nightmare."

She rubs the black blood off of her sleeve and onto his suit jacket, blows and raspberry at him and turns back to lay in the campfire. Wilson straightens his posture and adjusts his tie out of pure habit, muttering a polite 'goodnight' (to which Willow just groans an odd noise to before resting again) when the glint of something catches his eye.

Chester watches him, watches them both with an Intensity the King didn't realize the dog-chest was even capable of producing. The eye bone flickers from the king to the forest, the faded black of the night and the creatures that reside in it, the audience that hasn't left since day one.

He does not think it's required of him to say thank you, but Wilson still sets aside his momentarily distraction with the journal to shift to the shadow where Chester resides and to run a sharp pointed hand through his fur.

* * *

He does a lot of things to keep the Constant in check. The realm itself could continue without him, in all honesty, but it would bore out. The grass would still grow and trees would still walk, the pigs would thrive without interference, the beefalo overpopulate and the giants that roam could come and go as they pleased without being limited to the seasons that Wilson is dutifully making sure they're restricted to.

Of course, some things need maintenance. The hounds weren't always on schedule and the caves were more often than not in disarray from a multitude of earthquakes (no thanks to a certain fire starter's explosive destruction on the surface) and while it wasn't technically his job to clean up after the mess, it gave way to new opportunity he just couldn't pass up.

Little experiments. Some things he could set in motion, leave and come back later to see the results. Can Bunnymen swim? How deep is the abyss of black beyond the walk-able terrain in the caves? Once, he took a spider's legs from it's body. (by entirely painless means, of course.) and watched as it favored using it's teeth to bite down into the earth, dragging itself along the ground in order to move instead of simply rolling like a sentient, fuzzy rock.

The other spiders eventually ate their crippled brother, so he moved onto something else.

Now, Wilson isn't an entirely heartless scientist. (Keyword: entirely.) and he is well aware of the moral and ethical delima of living test subjects being used for experiments over the sake of scientific exploration. Boring. He's quite certain he actually gave a damn about it when he was a survivor, but the consequences aren't exactly an issue to him any longer now that he's king.

Besides. It was fun. Most of his experiments were completely harmless. Most of them.

As he watches Willow put the last finishing touches on the marble statue, securing the repaired pieces into place as the sun dips lower into the sky, he questions if he truly was such a man in his past life that decided that this was scientific. (and curses the past Wilson for roping the Willow of today into his shenanigans.)

Of all the things in the constant he's become ruler of, he's never really been fond of any of the chess pieces lying around. Now there was three of them, all situated in a triangle with a proud firestarter standing in the middle of them, dust on her hands and dirt on her knees. She shoots him a grin from his place up in the tree.

"Lugged these bad boys all the way out here by myself." She tells him, hands on her hips and victory in her smile. "Heavy as fuck though. Didn’t want them too close to camp though, just in case things got chaotic."

Wilson rubs his chin, squinting at the formation she's set them in. Three marble statues, all of their corresponding chess pieces of rook, bishop and knight. He remembers seeing these scattered across the island, sure. Though they were elsewhere, the bases too sunken in the ground from years and years (or whatever time stamp this realm held for them) of sitting in the same spot for so long. They looked heavy. Way too heavy. He sends Willow a scrutinizing look.

"So you decide to build decorations instead of preparing for next summer." He raises an eyebrow. "Odd decision. But I'm not here to judge."

"Funny. That sounds like exactly what you're doing." She wrinkles her nose at him. There's a fire pit she's built with amazing speed, as Willow does, in the middle of the formation, already lit to a bonfire. It's not quite night yet, though the edges of the sky has darkened enough to allow him free roam, Wilson keeps to the branch in the tree he's perched himself in, keeping a respectable distance away from the firestarter and the monstrosities she's pieced together.

"Besides." Willow starts again, letting her backpack lug off and rummaging through it. Chester is nearby, settled within reach if she need him."Spring just started. I've got time to burn before the world goes up in flames. Ha."

She pulls out a tentacle spike, a bundle of armor and a stack of what appears to be hastily made honey poultice. The woman sets these items in a neat pile next to the fire, ignoring the curious gaze that travels over them as she works.

Wilson folds his hands together, brows furrowed. "I know you love the smoldering heat, but do you really expect to be prepared for both the heat wave _and_ the care taking of the Antilion at this rate? Wasting your time on-" He gestures towards the chess pieces. (Which, for some reason, their purpose seems to have eluded his memory...) "This new found hobby?"

"The Antilion can suck it." Willow stands up straight, strapping on the armor with the practice of someone who's done it a million times over and then some. "I don't care for that over sized sandy insect anyways. Mammal thing. Whatever it is."

"There will be many tremors in your future." He tuts at her. "You should really spend your time setting up for the heatwave, however. Your camp at the oasis has-"

"I know." She cuts him off, a small amount of venom in her voice. Wilson shuts his mouth, not out of any other reason than politeness, and scans the creases in her face as she sends him a hardened expression that can only be described as one who's in the middle of remembering a bad memory. "I know that already."

She must be getting really, really tired of his constant ‘advice’.

The sternness in her sentence does not deter his warning, but he merely thins his mouth into a line and fiddles with his cuff links. "How do you expect to survive the summer, then?"

"Underground. The sun can't reach me there." She answers without looking at him (though he can sense the pang of sadness at the idea of being without the sun in her tone) and busies herself with an array of tasks she's made no point to enlighten him on.

Wilson spies papers and the corner of a blueprint sticking out of Chester's mouth. He eyes her turned back with suspicion. "Underground." He repeats. "I thought we talked about this."

"If you consider 'talking' to be you constantly nagging me about how I should 'weak and fragile' I am, then sure. Sure we did." Willow kicks the bag away from the center of the triangle, spike in one hand, and a mining pickax in the other. "If I hear one more lecture about how 'dangerous' and 'deadly' the ruins are, I'm going to off myself before you even finish."

Wilson's mouth twitches. "Someone is cranky today."

"Frustrated." Willow corrects. "Do you know how long it took for me to figure out this stuff? Ages. Like, I think I spend at least a week in total trying to figure out your hand writing."

At the mention of said writing, Wilson pauses, doubly checks for the journal stashed away in his suit pocket before giving her a questioning look. "My handwriting is superb, excuse you. If you can't understand it, perhaps you aren't mean't to be reading it in the first place."

Willow ignores him, taking a hold of Chester's eyebone and leaning her arm backwards, effectively throwing it across the field and somewhere yards away from her position. Still nearby should she need to retrieve, but good enough distance away from this...whatever formation she's built. Chester bounds to follow the eye, and Wilson shifts downwards from the tree and out of sight.

The firestarter turns back from the throw to face the now-empty tree, blinks at the sudden disappearance before promptly looking downwards to her feet. The last of her shadow, fading in with the new evening, stares up at her.

"I don't suppose you have an actual purpose for all of these lovely decorations, do you?" His voice comes up from the ground. The fire pit casts a lovely shadow against her body he can safely find refuge in. As long as she doesn't step inside the flames, that is. "Chess doesn't suit you."

Willow goes quiet for a moment. "You taught me how to do this."

"I didn't teach you to do any of this."

"No. Not the you now, but the you before." She pointedly tells him, watching his face go a little slack. "You even told me you wrote it in your journal once, but you never let me look through it." She waits until the white pricks that make up his eyes narrow and the slightest line appears in her shadow's face in a sign of disbelief.

Wilson glances between the chess pieces. The beginning of the night is almost there now, he can feel it approach. "You didn't tell me there was anything else other than the map." He's a little bit bitter about it.

"I don't tell you a lot of things." She drops the spike, reaches inside her shirt, (of course, a hiding place he'd never dare to look. Trust me, he's tried all the other knicks and corners of the camp.) and pulls out a wrinkled, yellowed page with torn edges and smeared ink.

"Do you remember that story I told you about us fixing those abandoned statues one day?" Willow asks him.

Wilson stares at it. It looks suspiciously the correct length and width to match all the other pages belonging to his journal. From a distance, he can see a poorly scribbled doodle of a knight statue. "With a reasonable margin of error, sure."

"It's was the day we lugged all the broken pieces of statues across the entire damn island to one little spot, fixed all the pieces just to see what would happen." She retells the story anyways, a flash of reminisces across her features. Whether she tells it for him or herself, the purpose doesn't matter. "It was your idea. Science, and all that."

"Was it now?" Of course it was his idea. He knew that. He's not sure how he knew that, he holds no memory of such an event but knowing Willow, there is absolute no way she'd ever do such a pointless thing unless she was convinced with good reason. It makes him wonder if he was just as persuasive as a survivor as he is now. "Let me guess: it all blew up in our faces?"

"We decided to finish fixing them on the full moon so we didn't have to repair them in the dark by firelight. You wouldn't even let me burn the forest down around us." A smile is on her face. It's refreshing. He focuses on it while she take a moment to collect her thoughts. "You already know what happened, right? You're king now."

"I know what these pieces summon, yes." Robots, from stone into metal borne by moonlight. Though tonight, such magic (dare he say it) is lacking. Something darker resides.

The shadow he stays in grows larger, the edges blurring into the dark as the sun sets and night begins it's final decent. "I didn't take you for the type that likes to repeat mistakes."

A small bit of rubble trails off the rook statue, and Willow glances at it in the corner of her eye before continuing. "Everything I do is for you, you jerk." Her heel kicks at the ground, just to make sure he’s paying attention. It’s for nothing, however. She’s the only thing out here that interesting. “Unlike someone I know, I actually stick to my word.”

White eyes dart to the paper in her hands as she shoves it unceremoniously back in her shirt, and Wilson begins to wonder what else she has hidden away that once belonged to him. What else does she know, that he thinks she doesn't?

His fingers tap against his suit pocket. “I see you’ve somehow managed to thieve something else.” The question is not explicitly said, but he gets his point across.

The grin that comes across her face is full of pride and mirth, and a bit of blush. “You weren’t really paying attention when you were scribbling your name all over my forehead.

The chess pieces begin violently shake. Pebbles of marble roll down the statue's surface, something inside, breaking and fighting the casing to get out. The moon's light is absent from the sky as the night of the new moon is here. Willow awaits his answer.

She must be mistaken. Wilson observes the formation of the statues, sensing the creatures held inside of them. “This is not a full moon. The result won’t be the same, the fight will be harder.”

“They’re shaking, aren’t they?” She points to the nearby crumbling statue. Her attitude is curt and dismissive. “Full or new moon or whatever, I just need the gears.”

A wicked smile grows on his face. White, jagged lines of teeth within in her shadow peer up at her. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into."

Willow tightens her pigtails and hefts the pickaxe over her shoulder. “Being a prick isn’t gonna deter me from preparing to go down into the ruins, you know. Have some faith in me.”

"I have full faith that your mission is going to get yourself killed. Which, if that's what you want to do, fine. Don't let me stop you." He means nothing of this. His manners have begun to suffer from his bitterness. The shadows dare whisper he has mood swings.

"I'll figure it out." She kicks the spot he lies in, watching tendrils of black and shadow trail up into the air and form into a man with a disapproving face. He opens his mouth to say something else but Willow beats him to it. "Finally. You know I'm starting to think you stay there just to look up my skirt."

Full offense with slight shock brings his mouth open to a protest, but Willow raises her pickax and swings it down before anything else could be said.

She misses the grin that stretches across his face as stone impacts marble.

The first one, a knight that has no muzzle like it's mechanical counterparts, breaks free from it's marble casing and the sound of the others follow suit. Marble rubble drops to the ground and three black figures rise from it's statue's destruction, each of them tall, translucent, with sharp teeth and made from stuff of nightmares.

They’re large. All of them. Three threats all fading in and out of the dark of night, not deterred by the light of her fire or the confidence she has (had) in mind, sets of white eyes turning to look at her. Willow freezes, stumbles back a few steps in the quick moments where everything goes still and she realizes that she may or may have not just really fucked up.

“Oh.” The pickax drops to the ground and Willow braces the spike. “Oh, no.”

There’s familiar laughter somewhere behind her as the knight lunges.

It’s horrific looking. It doesn’t even look like how a chess piece should, with a somewhat human face instead of a horse like one. The others are more alike to their counterparts but in no way any less deadly than the first. Said knight is without arms but not without reach as it barely, just barely misses Willow by the skin of her teeth as it attacks.

“What the _fuck_!” A yell comes out before she can stop it, ducking just in time before the knight struck again. “What the fucking hell is going on?!”

A dreadful feeling rises in her chest, anxiety in her throat, and Willow rolls out of the way just in time for the Shadow Rook to materialize in the spot where she once stood, teeth chomping down on the air that would no doubt would have killed her mili-seconds earlier. “Wilson, what the hell is this?!”

No answer, she doesn’t have the time to search for him though. Staying within the range of the fire’s light was hard enough as it was, harder when you have three insanely fast horrors out for your neck.

A screech sounds off and Willow skids to her left to avoid the bats chasing her, mere inches from her neck. “Wilson? Wilson, what the hell is this?” Another dodge, the Rook was very close this time. She feels something go clunk against her armor and swipes out in instinct. Whatever it is, the end of her spike tears through it, wisps of black trailing off the spikes as she pulls it back.

(They could be damaged. Good.) The firestarter makes a right-no! A left dodge, and the Rook comes into existence right above her fire, roaring something horrific at her retreating back. “It this some sort of fucking joke?!”

No answer. Willow takes a deep breathe, holds it, and spins on her heel, driving the front ends of the spike into the closest shadow creature.

The ends of it meet’s the forehead of the Bishop, transparent but somehow solid enough for the weapon’s sharp bits to tear through it’s eye and wisp away a bit of it’s life force. She heaves out air, watching it pause for moment stunned before retiring to it’s bats again.

The time she has to take a breathe and to dodge again is short. Dodge, run, attack. Dodge, run attack again. There’s no running from this. She has no time to take out her lighter to run away. She doesn’t even have time to get Bernie. (Oh, what she wouldn’t do if not to set this entire biome ablaze and run away like she does with the rest of her mistakes.)

She calls out again. “Wilson? Buddy, hey! Kinda uh-” A strike to her left. Something hard swipes across her armor, causing a crack to form in the side. An defensive out-strike, the Bishop gives out a screech as she tears through it’s front. “Could kinda use a hand here!”

Nothing but the sound of her own panting. Willow fills her lungs with air, ducks a strike from the knight and rolls across the ground, arm outwards to rip across a Shadow’s body as she moves.

A sudden pause. The Bishop lets out a sound of agony, the body materializes for a split second. The other two go still. Willow braces herself, looking out into the darkness. “Wilson?”

Nothing.

A quick glance to the fire tells her that the flames are still going strong, but it does nothing for her nerves (which were already frayed to a dangerous point, her sanity having depleted in the panic) as she watches both Shadow Pieces grow larger. Teeth stretching, horns growing longer, sharper and deadlier and dangerous and she is all alone.

_She is all alone._

Willow does not notice the wetness in her eyes over favor of the wetness dripping from somewhere on her forehead as the Rook appears in her shocked dazed, catching her pigtails between the crevices of it’s mouth and throwing her down to the ground by her hair, skin ripping and blood soaking into her bangs.

She doesn’t even have Bernie.

The knight is second to attack, but pure survival instinct is what pushes her up from the ground, dropping height so the strike goes over her head (her poor, poor head, whether because she’s hit it or her sanity, pity is welcomed) and dives to a clear space as the Rook comes again. This time, she spins, the ends of her weapon driving a space through the air and the Rook.

The laughter she expects to be there isn’t there, and she takes too long of a second to listen for it that another hit comes across her chest and sends her flying, bits and pieces of her armor crumbling away.

Her back hits something solid, but not quiet, and Willow has just barely enough sense to hit back whatever she landed on before it got her first. She registers the Knight preparing for another lunge as she digs through the body of the Rook, stiffing a gasp (or really, a scream) as she ducks and watches the Knight fly right into and past the Rook.

That sucks. She was really hoping they would collide.

The larger one again, it’s fading a little. It’s growing weaker, yet stronger than what it was when it was first summoned. She doesn’t know how it got to that way, but this isn’t the time to be asking questions. Leave the science of the magic to the jerks and the fighting to the firestarter who wanted to stay alive. Hit first, run, dodge, don’t even think about it.

A little voice in the back of her head tells her that not-thinking things though is what got her in this situation in the first place, but she lets the train of thought die as does the Rook does on the end of her weapon. The last of it’s form fades away into the air as a distant roar or a dripping pool of nightmare fuel to the grass

Willow is gasping for air. Blood is pooling down over her left eye, she can taste it on her lips. Her hands are slick with sweat. This is fine. She can keep this up. She’s doing great. She’ll survive. All she has to do is have faith.

She remembers what her blood tastes like, she remembers how to breath, the adrenaline rushing through her veins. She doesn’t have armor anymore, but she has poultice, and a weapon, and will to push on. Barely, but she does. She’ll survive. She just has to keep this up.

So she looks up to see the Knight grow three times in size, with multiple arms and mouths and eyes, all of which glare down at her like a meal that’s been served, and Willow realizes that she _can’t_.

The knight dives for her. Her legs are too tired to move. A deep inhale, shoulders slumped forward and eyes shut tight, Willow raises her weapon and blindly swings.

There’s a hiss. Then silence.

Eyes glued closed, body tense and spike outstretched in front of her in defense of an attack that never came. Confusion fills the space where dread initially took her heart, and while the anxiety is still there, the mind is still registering that she’s still alive between the insanity of it all.

A slow clap. “Entertaining show and all, but I’m afraid it’s a bit too late for heroics.”

… _Bastard._

The tension in her shoulders drop immediately and Willow opens and swings her gaze to glare at the King himself, standing tall a distance away with a satisfied look on his face. Her mouth falls open a little, her eyebrows scrunched in a mixture of intense emotions. Panting still, the ends of her vision is blurring, black wisps flying everywhere but the white of his eyes stick out enough for her to focus just on him.

Wilson looks to her forehead and to the weapon still outstretched towards him, and tuts. “No hard feelings? You didn’t even die.”

Another breathe of air, her heart rate is slowing down enough for her to speak properly. “What did you-”

“Look around you.” He interrupts her, bringing out a hand and pressing a claw to the tip of her weapon, slowing pointing it down. “The knight you faced isn’t a problem anymore.”

She blinks the wet out of her eyes, (was it tears? was it blood? who knows at this point) and scans the area. It might be her sanity, it might just be the dark of the night, but those black wisps she was seeing before wasn’t just wisps floating in the air.

Butterflies. Everywhere. All of them black as night, translucent, as if made from shadow it’s self. They fly all around her head and into the light of her fire, landing on the grass, disappearing into the flames and out again. Wings of black silk and little, snowflake size designs she can’t make out of. And god, there were so many of them, she cant count the amount, blotting out the stars and settling on her shoulder.

She thinks about the sheer size of that Knight, of how many butteries would it take to form into it again. For a moment, she is afraid. Then one flutter to her ear, rests on the band of her disheveled pigtail, so light and fragile and harmless that she forgets it’s even there as she turns to meet eyes of red. He’s watching her.

“Hey.” It’s the only thing she can think of to say.

Wilson blinks, shakes his head a little, they return to white and the smile he had returns. “Apologies. Distracted again.”

She’s going to ignore that statement. Collecting her baring, letting the weapon slip from her hands and clatter to the ground. Willow tears off the last remaining bits of her armor, nothing more than a few spare threads of rope and kindling of wood, off of her body and tossed carelessly into the fire. The flames perk up at the fuel, and she lets them run up her wrists.

“That is only a taste of what you’ll find in the ruins.” He speaks again without provoking. It’s not even minutes after her near death (to her, at least. But he’d never allow it now.) and he’s already being intensive about it, he knows. The gentleman in him says that he should be more considerate, but pride is a suffocating vice. “Maybe now you’ll understand why you should be more careful.”

No answer from the firestarter. The brunette only stands from her spot, letting the last of the fire trail off of her skin and turning to face him with an unreadable expression. The king glances to the honey poultice, knocked out of it’s neat pile during the fight, but well within reach of the fire’s light. Willow makes no move towards it, a step coming towards him instead.

He’s standing at the edge of the light’s circle, but she makes no motion to bring out the lighter he’s sure she has stashed with her. Not even to pull out the teddy bear she’s got tucked away in her discarded backpack. Once she comes close enough, he can see the blood’s source underneath her bangs, a red mark along her skin, just below her hairline.0

He frowns as she gets closer. She doesn’t seem to be paying any mind to it. “You’re injured-”

Willow hugs him. Arms wrap around his neck and the brunette stands on her tippy toes, burying her head into where his neck and shoulder meet. Blood smears on his tie, matching the red, he can smell it especially strong. The king’s arms are raised in shock at her side.

“I thought you left.” Willow whispers into his suit. “I thought you left me. Again.”

His throat feels dry. Fingers twitch, the warmth of her breath on his skin and he doesn’t know if the coolness he feels is from her tears or her blood. “I won’t leave you.” Hands twitch, sharp at the end. They dangle at the side, he keeps them away from her. “I can’t leave you.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” Her question has no mirth to it.

A pause. His arms come up again against better judgement, and his arms wrap around her, one hand on the back of her head, the other on her back. “Whatever you want it to be.”

(He remembers wondering when was the last time he had a hug. During the floods? Used as a taxi in the midst of jests and laughs, or in the ruins of a charred oasis camp, scarring his hand with fire over a selfish want. Or the one he remembers in the sky, when fear was rushing through him and anger followed soon after. Other times, maybe after that. This felt different.)

This one felt _different_.

“You really suck at keeping promises.” A sound comes out of her. It repeats, and he concludes that it is most definitely a sniffle. “Like, you’re really, really bad at it. Your gentleman code of honor must have dipped the second your humanity did.”

She’s snarky. Obviously peeved off, and he doesn’t blame her. Though, there’s a small sense of relief that comes to him once he hears the familiar tone in her voice, enough that he’ll let the remark pass for now. “Yes, well.” His fingers find her pigtails and distracts himself with picking the tangles out with the claw of his thumb. There’s anxiety he feels he doesn’t know where to place. “Can you entirely blame me?”

“Yeah.” She’s quiet. “There’s a lot that’s your fault.”

She’s not wrong. It hurts more than what the shadows say it should, but she’s not wrong. He’s done things, doing things, will do things that aren’t exactly _good_. For reasons of Shadow and reasons of selfishness both, being both king and a scientist made it’s race when it conflicted with being a friend.

The arms around her tighten without his permission. He wants to say things he’s not allowed to, but They’re listening. “I know.”

“And you’re not really good at redeeming yourself.”

“I know.”

"And you're not very good at being Wilson."

One of his fingertips come back bloody. He pulls back the hand that he was subconsciously running through her hair before he irritates her wound any further. If Willow felt it, she didn’t say anything. "I know."

“It’s okay." She rubs a hand on his back. "I know you’re trying.”

Willow’s sweater crinkles at the spots where his fingers freeze and curl into the fabric, the firestarter and King still alike. The night is silent, the light dim and the butterflies even quiet in their fluttering, moving about like a storm whilst the two stood still like marble statues. The irony does not escape him.

“What are you getting at.” It comes out more less like a question and more like mummer.

“Your heart.” This hug feels different, the realization comes to him as to why that is. “I can feel your heartbeat. You have one.”

Silence. He opens his mouth to speak, then shuts it. Opens it again, and closes it, nothing more coming out of a mouth that can easily spew so many empty threat and promises and facts of science that none other can best. Now it feels as if his heart rate is speaking for him. It matches her own, he can feel that too. (And he does not tell her what defeating those shadows should have returned.)

This hug feels different, and he didn’t want it to stop.

So Wilson does what Wilson does best and changes the mood. “The last time you held me this tightly, the world was flooding.” He feels her instantly tense, and a small twitch tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Are you always this clingy? or is it the Springtime fever?”

If there’s snot from her tears, she’s most certainty rubbing it onto his shoulder by now. “Are you always this forward? Because gentlemen are supposed to be subtle!”

He’s currently working on ‘subtle’, but she has no clue to that.“I might be rusty at being a gentleman, but I hope I could at least play your ‘Knight’ in shining armor.”

She grips the collar of his suit, and a snort sounds out from the place where she’s buried her face. “ _Please_ tell me that wasn’t a pun.”

“Of course it was. You like my puns.”

“I only like them when they’re tasteful.” Her mouth pressed against his shirt, her voice hitches up a little like she’s holding something back. Between a sob or a giggle, he’ll bet on the latter. “That one was just awful!”

He clicks his tongue, a low chuckle shakes from his shoulders. “That was one of my best ones yet!”

A groan that suspiciously sounds like held-back laughter. “It was so cheesy!” Willow hiccups, and it’s such a soft, happy sound. “I think I’m going to vomit!”

“Not on me, you’re not.”

Immediately after his protest, the arms around him tighten and Willow is now giddy into their hug, and despite his better judgement (and the audience that watches from the shadows, butterflies and all) he squeezes her just a little bit tighter, her toes lifting from the ground just for a moment in his hold. “I think you’ve gone mad!”

“Is that what you think?” She’s spun a little. The world is still blurring a little.

“I don’t think, I know so. No one can survive those atrocities without coming out at least half-loony.” At the sentence, Wilson remembers the smell of her blood and the consequences of hesitance. He releases her, but she not from him, and he has to grip her by the torso and take off her arms from around his neck and gently as manners allow him, spin her around and hold her by the shoulders. “Go now, into the fire before you lose the rest of your mind.”

She’s giggly. The kind of giggly one person can getting after coming down from so much adrenaline. Not quite mad, per say, but defiantly getting there. A glance around the area and into the darkness shows creatures lying in wait, but too hesitant to approach. Wilson’s presence has something to do with this, he knows, but there’s only so many strings he can pull before it no longer matters and they come for her, with or without his say so.

He gives her a little push towards the fire pit, if only for her to let her balance lose and fall directly back into her arms again. A dazed, slightly irritated, but also disoriented Willow peers up at him, blood smeared on her face and a lop sided smirk. “I live.”

“You won’t for long if you don’t come to your senses.” He sets her upright again, curious at the wobble in her stance before she straightens, turning on her own and facing him fulling. Willow’s smile has dropped into a more neutral expression, looking at him with something akin to curiosity. The sudden change in demeanor makes him hesitate. “Yes?”

Willow peers out into the night, fluttering wings weaving all around and in between the space between them before asking. “Why butterflies?”

One lands on her shoulder, and the king’s eyes flicker from it’s wings back up to her. “Because you give me them. Constantly. Thought I’d return the favor.”

A snort, and Willow scrunches up her nose. “Is that another pun?”

“Something like that.”

One lands on her nose, and she blows a breath of air to shoo it away. Harmless things, pretty, whatever experiment he conducted to make the Knight explode into a mass of them must have been as sight to see had she not been so much of a coward. (Or him not so much of a prick to make her believe he was gone) Still, it was a cute little gesture. Or a gesture of power. A strange one, none the less.

Wilson sees a few land on her head like a make-shift crown made of wings instead of flowers and blinks away the same dazed feeling that’s been plaguing him of late.

As she stumbles away from him to the safety of the fire (stepping over mounds of nightmare fuel as she goes, crinkling her nose as it wiggles) she picks up the remainder of the poultice and brushes back her bangs, first aiding her skin as he keeps his distance, as routine should be. The butterflies disperse after a while, not fully, but mostly as her sanity returns and a little bit of light comes into the sky. She doesn’t look to see where they go.

Once she has a bandage secured, Bernie in hand and fire blown up as high as she could possibly make it, Wilson grabs her attention momentarily only to wink and point off into the distance. Willow follows his gaze, her face shifting from shock, pity and guilt all in one second.

Chester sits obediently and watchful a bit away, panting with a goofy happy face, fur caked with nightmare fuel and with a whole army of butterflies perched on him to the point where he was nearly camouflaged.


	12. Annivesary

Spring was finally here.  Finality being; the cold was finally gone, now replaced by constant rain of either water or frogs, or both. Every mammal on the island seemed to have formed into mating packs and it wasn’t uncommon for Willow to see herds of beefalo making odd noises at one another, nor was it odd to more offspring than usual. She finds a baby Koala font in the forest without it’s mother, most likely having wondered off, and decides to simply ignore it.

Between the rain and the headache of dealing with all the angry bees she finds at nearly every turn, things were going well. She’s avoided the Moose Gooses’s nests well enough, she’s gone and made herself a new raincoat and straw hat to fight off the constant storm (and it worked, it an extent. It didn’t save her shoes from getting soaked every now and then however.) and food was plentiful. The work she’s put into rebuilding her garden has paid off, and there were several vegetables to toss in with the frog legs she’s over stocked on.

She more often than usual makes food just for the whim of it, the concept of starving a now distant concept with the amount of food that she has to last her. Still, she didn’t want it to go to waste, and there wasn’t going to be much she can take down to the caves to her aside from what she freshly makes and the ones that don’t spoil as quickly.

Speaking of which, it wasn’t long now. The plan was to leave for the caves in a day, maybe too. It may be wet and mucky below but it was best to get situated down there as soon as possible in order to avoid the harsh sunlight and heat that accompanies Summer in it’s wake.

Willow will miss the heat actually. The forest fires weren’t anything to snuff at either. But there’s no more oasis to ground herself at this season, and she will openly admit she grasps at the concept at finding _something_ down there to help secure Wilson’s freedom, regardless of the King’s commentary.

He doesn’t protest as much as he does. Now whenever she mentions it, his response consists of a disapproving frown. Maybe even a mutter. His manners have escaped him in his frustration, but for the most part he is quiet.

Even now, he’s silent. Leaning against a tree not far from camp, the one she’s certain he’s favorited because of it’s position. It’s cloudy, no telling if it’s going to rain or not, and Willow didn’t have the time nor motivation to build that wacky contraption that he ‘advised’ her to. (If he wanted to see one being made so badly, he should have just created one himself. He huffs at that suggestion, says something about her being lazy and waves her off.) It’s dark enough out for him to stand transparent, the sunlight lessened by the shaded sky.

Still, with it being daytime, Willow can see the flowers and lines of the leaves right through him, like patterns weaving through his suit. Come to think of it, there’s never really been a time where she’s really gotten to test what it would be like to touch him in that state. There have been instances, of course, here and there, where her hand comes to close or she’s falling, and he’s materialized just enough to feel something akin to a physical presence, though for the most part he avoids it by hiding in her own shadow. But today was not sunny enough, and she catches his gaze occasionally flickering down to her feet, almost disappointed that there isn’t one.

“What are you working on?” Wilson’s voice breaks her out of her daydreaming and Willow blinks, a slight shake of the head and clutching her ‘project’ a little bit closer, to the side where it’s out of view. The Shadow King’s head tilts at the motion, but awaits her answer before inquiring further.

“A surprise.”‌ Her hands are covered in black and red, her knees and the drapery she’s layed out across the grass stained with the same colors as well. “It’s almost done.”

White eyes scan over her make-shift work area and squint at her tools of choice. Blobs of gooey, staining substance, that could most likely be used as a substitute for paint, seemly made out of rudimentary items. The shade of black didn’t match the shade that he wears, looking more alike to charcoal. It smelled of it too, mixed with something else. The reds, and what appeared to be yellows and oranges appeared to be made of specific types of foliage. Flower petals mushed together with berry juice. He recognizes the species of a few flowers well, eyeing the crushed rose petals scrapped together to form a reddish hue.

Wilson’s eyes searches and dully notes the thorn pricks on a few of her fingers before continuing. “Is it scientific?”

The firestarter pauses, doubly makes sure she can’t see what she’s doing (He could honestly just walk around and see for himself, but he humors her attempt at secrecy and stands planted in one spot.) before glancing over her shoulder and offering a non-committal noise. “I mean. I guess?” She thinks for a moment. “No, it’s not scientific.”‌

“Then consider me not interested.” Wilson smirks.

“Rude. You don’t even know what I’m doing this for.” She turns back to her work and occasionally glances back at him to see if he’s peeking. He’s not, but even her full body couldn’t shield the project away from him. There’s a handle of some sort sticking out, the rest hidden by her torso.

“I’m assuming in preparation for your suicide mission.”‌ It’s a dull comment. A jab, at that one.

He hears a groan, Willow pointedly mummers about his nagging. “Enough of that already. Go inside a tree or the tent or something while finish this up so I don’t have to hear your whining.”‌ There’s annoyance in her voice, but it’s light and holds no actual malice. “Why don’t you just go out and hang around in there all day?‌ It’s nice and cool and away from the sunlight, and I‌ can’t afford to start any fires in there anyway. Trust me, I tried that with mine and it didn’t work out too well.”

One, perhaps two seconds pass after she says it does the firestarter realize her mistake. Her hands halt in her painting, and she hears Wilson click his tongue from behind her. “I thought you said that the rain had messed up your tent?”

Amber eyes glare at him from over her shoulder (he sees the faintest of color on her face, and her embaressment has the king raise a brow at the flushness) before disappearing to focus again. “Doesn’t matter now.” She waves a stained hand off to the direction of the discussed tent, not too far from where they were positioned. “It was yours anyways. If you want it back just go for it. I’ll make myself a new one.”

She expects a quick comment to follow, but silence hangs for a minute. Willow peers over her shoulder once more, hands coming over to shield her creation (just in case) as she peeks and finds the King looking oddly…nervous. His brows furrowed, sending narrowed looks to the entrance of the tent. “I can’t go in there.”

“Why not?” She fixes a certain part together as she speaks, careful with her fingers. “It’s nice and shady in there for you.” And it would be nice to go back to the routine long before, too.

Wilson’s mouth thins into a line. His hand twitches, and he shoves them into his pockets. With every instance he’s had to stick so much as a pinkie into the boundaries of the tent, he remembers the feeling. The voices remind him again. “I’m not allowed in there.”

“Not allowed.” She repeats with a scoff. “You’re KING. Aren’t you in charge of making the rules?”

“Mostly.” He’s voice has gone even. Professional. He had a habit of doing that when he lied as a survivor, now it was much harder to tell. “But there’s an extent to what I can do, as unbelievable as that sounds.”

Willow opens her mouth to protest before stopping. They night she lost her lighter, and the moment he brought it back, shoving it inside before retracting his hand as if the very entrance of the tent had burned him harsher than any flame. She remembers seeing that hand for two seconds, and the burn scar that used to adorn it, in the duration it took for him to fetch it for her so short that he might as well had just chucked it in without a second though. But he took the small effort for her.

And perhaps, an even bigger effort when it came to the tent, because she has flurried, blurry memories of being lifted and laid down in a sickness-induced sleep within the safety of her tent, and the shadow that held her was obviously uncomfortable in the small space. She had her doubts, chalked it up to a fever dream perhaps. But now, she’s certain.

She won’t let him know she knows though. They’ve been through more complicated things by this point. Willow rubs the remaining wet paint onto her skirt, ignoring the stains in her skin and watching as Wilson eyed the tent with a distaste she couldn’t quite pinpoint. “What does it feel like?”

He must have been in deep thought, or perhaps a memory, because her question widens his eyes the slightest and he looks back to her with the faintest of surprise. “Feel like?” He runs the question over his tongue, a vague thing. “If you mean sleep, I wouldn’t know. I have no memory of what it feels like to dream and I have no need for it now. I don’t get tired.”

“You _look_ tired.” She refutes, and watches his neutral expression fall into a frown with the slightest bit of amusement. “I didn’t mean sleep. I mean, does it like, I don’t know. Hurt? Are you claustrophobic?” Willow questions him with the slightest of teasing in her tone. “Maybe you’re just a wuss because you’ll be in a tight space with me.”

“Maybe you should think about the words your saying before you speak.” It comes out harsher than he intends it to be, but the firestarter doesn’t seem to take offense. “And no. I’m just not allowed in there.”

“Why? You don’t need my permission to enter your tent.”

His frown grows deeper and Wilson leans towards her direction with a sour look. “It’s not _your_ permission I need.” He can’t afford that. Everything is disconnected and yet amplified in that small space. The few seconds he was within there was enough to deter him. “I will not go in there.”

Her expression falls into a pout and it almost matches his own, but she turns and waves him off, wrinkling her nose and brushing away his declaration. Wilson’s a cryptic, as usual. “Whatever, whatever, don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m almost done anyways.” The sound of shuffling, she rises from her place, holding whatever she’s made and not facing him. “Close your eyes.”

His eyes narrow instead. “Why?”

“Just, don’t ask any questions and close your eyes. It’s supposed to be a surprise!”‌ She’s squinting back at him too, bottom lip curled up in defiance and matching his own scrutiny. “What do you have to lose? It’s not like I’m going to set you on fire or anything.”

She hears him chuckle. “I have a hard time believing this.”

“Will you just humor me?”

He taps his fingers against his pants legs, a tilt of his head before shrugging. There’s a smile on his face, one he didn’t authorized but he doesn’t get rid of it once it’s noticed. Curiosity had fueled his teasing. “As you wish, they’re closed.”

Footsteps. She’s approaching him, and for a split second Wilson gets the odd feeling that he’s about to get awfully pranked before her voice comes to calm his concern. “Hold out your hand.”

He pulls it out of his trousers pocket and does so, and feels something smooth and handcrafted fit into his hands. His fingers close around it instinctively, something hard and wooden against his palm. Without prompt from Willow, Wilson opens his eyes, wide and glancing down to what she’s given him.

He holds a handle, trailing downwards he finds the item to be an umbrella. One that’s been handcrafted, obviously by the crooked woodwork and spare silk threads hanging off the ends of it but a well made one none the less.It’s not raining, and he’s immune to the rain anyways, so confusion floods his face. Out of the corner of his eye he sees her gesture for him to open it, and nearly laughs at the sight that greets him when he does.

Willow has painted the umbrella black, as dark as she could possibly stain it. The dark color is seeped so finly into the stretched pigskin that the Scientist is convinced that it would take many storms and downpours for the color to fade. But the irony of the black umbrella isn’t what brings his mouth to a toothy grin, no, but the obviously fake flame decals she’s painted on the edges leading up towards the middle, as if to illusion that the umbrella was on fire itself.

“Happy Anniversary.” Willow starts, and forms a small smile.“Of being back, I mean. One full Constant year of being the King, I guess. Congrats.”

The king twirls the gift in his hands and gives it a look over, a chuckle in the back of his throat. “And this-?”

“For the sun. Remember that time when you pulled that blindfold stunt on me and I chucked my umbrella into the forest never to be seen again?” The memory is comical now, and he finds the slight sheepishness in her voice adorable. “Yeah. So I made a new one. Now you can stop hanging around in my shadow all the time like a creepy weirdo.”

Wilson laughs. Genuinely laughs, spins the umbrella in his hands before closing it and snickering some more at how the decals look when the darn thing is folded. “This, my dear Willow, is incredibly _tacky_.” He boops her knee with the tip of it. “I love it.”

“Good. Cause I’ll be stealing it again when it’s all gross and mucky in the caves later.”

For once, his smile does not falter, and only a huff of air escapes through his nose. “I do wish you had told me we were supposed to be celebrating this event. It had completely escaped my mind.” He taps the side of his head for emphasis before leaning back (floating in the air again, he crosses his legs and moves to the side of her, and Willow is reminded of the Chesire cat again) “I didn’t get you anything.”

“Well, it’s not _my_ anniversary of returning as an evil super villain, but I totally wouldn’t object if say…” Willow fumbles with her hands in the air, shrugging her shoulders and raising a brow in his direction. “..You made a couple of those wicked fire staffs suddenly appear for no reason, right?”

The look Wilson gives her borders on comedy. “Hilarious. But I have a much better idea.”

Quickly, before she could reaction, he’s gets close enough and moves a hand around her head, his fingertips brushing through her hair before resting on her ear. Willow freezes, and Wilson allows himself to revel in her stunned expression as he lets his freehand rest on her cheek. “I still have my doubts about your safety concerning the ruins.”

Willow immediately frowns and opens her mouth, but he cuts her off with a swift motion. Fingertips glide over her skin, gentle and soft, (and it’s weird, she thinks, because in the back of her mind she remembers that he’s still transparent, and skin on skin contact like that felt like a wisp of air ) before reaching the space from behind her ear and Wilson none-too-dramatically pulls something out for show. “Though, I’d feel better about it if you had something like this.”

With a smug grin, he’s holding what appears to be a walking cane. Yet, it’s not poorly crafted, like something he fashioned once long ago when he was nothing like he is before. No, this item is well refined, smoother and made of something that appears to be ancient. The hand-held part was made out of some orange, odd looking material she’s never seen before, black, edge tips at each end. Hands reaching out gingerly, she takes it from him, ignoring how her fingers phase through his own as it drops into her palm and stares eyes wide at the trail of shadows that wisp from the end.

“This is…mine?” She’s giggling. Willow whips it around like a child swinging a wooden sword, watching the black wisps that fall from it at every swipe like shadowed fire. “This is so _you_.”

“It’ll help you. Give you a little boost, maybe get you out of a couple rough spots. Or you could just go on a joy walk with it, doesn’t matter to me.”‌ Wilson watches her try to catch the little wisps with her hands, already noticing the effects of her giddiness, and the walking cane’s tribute to that. The shoddy umbrella is much duller in comparison to the cane’s flashy show, but he fiddles with the handle and gazes at the faux ‘flames’ with a warmth that rivals real ones.

“Happy Anniversary.” He says. (And the voices are _screaming_ at him.) “We’re even now.”

“I‌ could do some real hiking with this.” She’s grinning, twirling it in her hands (almost dropping it a few times, but he tries not to laugh at the sight, because she’s genuinely happy and there’s the warm feeling again that only comes whenever he knows that he was the direct reason for the smile she’s wearing at the moment. “I love this! You! You…” She stops, the brunette pausing in her appreciation to send him a look that Wilson can’t quite pinpoint. “Were you _allowed_ to give this to me?”

No. No, he wasn’t.

“I’d give you the world if I could.” Wilson’s smile is full of sharp deceit and sharper teeth. “And I‌ _can_. But let’s save that for the second anniversary.”

She blanks at his jest before snorting at his poor excuse of a flirt, platonic or not it was vague enough to make her blush. But it’s enough to divert her attention from the question, and Wilson favors hearing her voice over the disapproving shadows and the pain spreading in his chest down his arms and back again. It takes a notable effort, he realizes, all while holding up a dull smile, not to snap the umbrella’s handle in half as the tension seeps through his fingertips and whispers quietly to remind him what it feels like to rip through flesh.

“This isn’t going to change my mind, you know.” She breaks him from his thoughts, and he’s almost thankful for it. “All the gifts in the world isn’t going to stop me from saving you.”

A twitch in his mouth, his face has begun to hurt from the smiling so it dims into a stretched line. “I will kill you if you continue like this.”

It’s not a threat, nor a warning, but a fact. One that Willow completely and utterly disregards. “Whatever. You love me.”

A sharp sound. A crack appears on the umbrella handle. Wilson forces his fingers to relax and swallows the tension in his throat. “I‌ have an idea for this ‘celebration’ of ours, if you’re up to it.”

Her eyes lighten up, but they don’t lose the sense of cautiousness that she’s held from day one. Hands on her hip, the other leaning on her cane proudly, she squints at him. “And what would that be?”

* * *

The desert is debatable his least favorite place to be. That may be just Wilson himself, having always preferred the Winter seasons and colder weather to the heat, or the Shadow King in him, noting all the spots where lava pools together and cast light too intense for him to be around, regardless of the the time of day.

It was, however, the perfect habitat for those who preferred such an environment. He doesn’t understand why the Volt Goats are so fond of the place, and why the Antilion decides to emerge here out of all places on the island, when there’s plenty of other spots the hybrid could burrow to. (Not that there was any worrying about that creature now. He didn’t suppose he’d see much of that thing when Willow makes her trek down below, but he’ll gladly laugh in her face when she’s being bombard by the angry thing’s boulder’s it likes to shake down. Messy, messy.)

There is one creature in particular that Wilson knows stays year-long, no matter if its raining or snowing or flooding in the Constant.

The Dragonfly glowers down to the Shadow King whom approaches with half-lidded eyes and a calm demeanor, hands in his pockets and at ease. “Hello, Anisoptera.”

Willow cups her hands around her mouth and yells out to him from a safe distance. “Nerd alert!”

The King frowns, sends a shooting glare over his shoulder before letting a hand come to rest of the snout of the giant, it’s massive eyes reflective in the dusk light. It was closer to the sun setting now, as it takes nearly half a day’s trip to even get to the desert, but Wilson will admit: the Dragonfly looks as threatening and as magnificent as it does with a background of red and orange skies. A glance to the firestarter and the wide-eyed look she has, a mixture of fear and both admiration, tells him that she sees the same.

“I don’t recommend bullying me much more unless you’d like to have her come after you.” He doesn’t need to speak loud for her to hear him. There’s the only ones, aside from the Dragonfly herself, out there. No forests, no plains, just open desert in sight to one another. “I‌ don’t control these creatures, but they will still defend their king if they feel it’s necessary.”

Willow sticks out her tongue, but she cannot hide the flash of jealously that comes across her face as Wilson runs a hand over the giant’s snout and gives her soothing little pets. It looked so peaceful, and the creature so beautiful, full of fire and lava and everything that Willow dreamed to be. It’s such a shame that it would probably kill her if she so much as too one step forwards.

At the thought, the brunette clutches the walking cane tighter to her chest. She wants to be as close as possible, to see the beauty, to see the sunset lights and colors shimmer off her scales and reflect off of the hexagon of her eyes. To say that Willow wasn’t a fan of the damned thing would be a lie. (She knows better than to just run up to it though. On the trip there she made the account of telling Wilson that one of his death’s from before had consisted of him being too brave and strutting up to the damn thing. He was not a fast runner. The Shadow King grimaced at her story, but had no other commentary to say.)

It’s sight she doesn’t get to see often, like how most people prefer to watch the birds or deer, she took a liking to this massive, fiery hybrid of myth. So caught up in it in fact, she doesn’t realize she’s been completely zoned out until Wilson’s voice grows a tad sharper and snaps her back to attention. “Are you listening?”

“Huh. What. Yeah.” Willow non-chalantly adjusts the straps to her backpack. “What were you saying?”

“Would you like to come pet her?”

The firestarter blinks once, twice, than furrowing her brows at the insane idea. “Are you nuts? She’s just gonna kill me!”

So can he, but he’s tired of pointing out the obvious. “She won’t hurt you. Not while I’m here she won’t.” As if to emphasis his point, he gives her snout a little pat and steps back. The Dragonfly shifts it’s attention from King to her, and Willow nearly takes a step back from the smoldering gaze it cast. “Don’t be afraid. Nothing will happen to you.”

Hesitation. The brunette takes a step forward, which turns into two steps, then into three before she’s slowly making her way towards them both. A few yards away and Wilson can see the nervousness take over and she halts, though he’s not sure if it’s out of fear, or just out of awe of seeing her favorite giant up so close without running for her life. “…Are you sure? It’s not gonna hurt me?”

“Yes.”

She stares in disbelief. “Thought you said you couldn’t control them.”

“I can’t control them. But I can _ask_ them not to.” The smile he has contains no mirth, only cold fact. (She wonders, briefly, how exactly does he ‘ask’ them to do something.) “Though, I‌ expect you to be mannerable and not to do anything stupid to provoke them, either.”

Willow’s response is a crude impression of him repeating those very words. Wilson has grown accustomed to tuning that out, instead watching with muted interest as the woman takes yet another step forward, and another, and another until she is at the same distance as he is, to his side and staring up at the Dragonfly with wide eyes and a racing heart.

A moment passes and Wilson looks to and fro from firestarter and creature. Neither seem to move, aside from the giant’s wings. It doesn’t take an expert to spy the slightest of shakes from Willow’s hand as she reaches forward just a few inches, then retracts it. He can thank his better hearing, however, to the sound of her heartbeat stuttering at the sight of the Dragonfly so close.

The shadows are already very, very angry with him, but at this point he has nothing else (everything else) to lose. “Here.” He takes his hand and splays his fingers, raising it over her own and taking hold of it. “Just, trust me on this.”

Willow tenses underneath his touch but doesn’t pull away. He guides her hand to the Dragonfly’s snout, lets it rest on the skin and holds it there for a few seconds. Fingers lace with hers and he keeps her palm to the creature’s skin as woman and giant stare up and down at each other in mutual silence.

Her hand moves underneath his. Willow takes a small breath. “Whoa.”

Wilson takes that as his cue and drops his hand, takes a step backwards and watches with tired eyes as Willow makes timid, soft stroking motions on the Dragonfly’s snout.

“She’s so beautiful.” Her voice is soft, struck in awe. Willow feels the odd texture of the giant, frozen to the spot yet the heat emitting off of it was immense. A feeling of warmth and fire, of lava and molten and safety and satisfaction she has not felt in months. Best friend to the side of her and an absolute wonder in front of her, this was a dream come true.

It feels like it, because she squeals as the Dragonfly raises it’s snout and brushes it up against the side of her face, humming a buzzing noise that feels happy and content with this new found friend. (no matter if this little friend was a bit too puny for liking and the King was simply observing the effects of the exchange) Willow’s laughs, bubbly and hiccupy, lost in the moment and it falls into the same even tune as the high pitch noise the giant was making as she prodded and hugged its snout.

She turns to Wilson to exclaim her excitement and finds his eyes focused solely on her, half-lidded and the warm colors of the sky bleeding onto his face.

Wilson blinks, and promptly clears his throat. “It’ll be night soon.” Not that she needed him to tell her that, but he needed to say something. Anything. “…You should probably get some rest.”

He’s hinting towards her upcoming adventure, she can tell by the low sour-ness in his voice as he speaks. Willow’s wide, toothy smile falls into a calmer one, though the joy never leaves her eyes. She rubs on Dragonfly’s snout a little more, even going as far as to give it a smooch and to giggle cute things at it (much like she does with Chester, but she can’t call Chester the same names as one would to a mythical fiery giant)‌ before taking steps back and beaming at her companion.

“You’re out doing yourself. There’s nothing I‌ can give to you that would equal up to-” She raises her hands and does a massive gesture towards the Dragonfly, the insect giving a confused buzz. “This.”

Razor teeth curl up into a smirk, and Willow has to stop him before he can open his mouth. “I already know what you were going to ask and: no.”

She expects a frown per usual, but instead she receives a shake of the head. Wilson chuckles at her quick-to-conclusion and tilts his head, floating on his back and sending her a look that reminds her much like a snake. “I do have something to ask, yes. But I’m not asking you.”

Amber eyes narrow and Wilson winks. Not to her though, but to the beast above her. She stumbles backwards. “Wait.”

A loud, sputtering, gross noise and everything is wet and hot at the same time. The Dragonfly has _sneezed_ on her.

Willow is on her backside covered in fiery, mucusy lava. Raising her arms brings the gooey substance stuck to her clothes, sticky in her hair, and burning the ground around her. It doesn’t even smell like fire.

Wilson is having a fit. “That came out messier than imagined but it’s a lovely look on you!”

The fire starter scrambles to her feet, her shoes being so sticky and slick that she slips and falls again (and his laughing fit is refreshed at that too) until she’s able to hoist herself upwards enough, with the walking cane ironically enough, to make sloppy stomps towards him in an attempt to bonk him over the head with it. “You fucking MELON‌HEAD!”

* * *

She apologized for the Melon-head insult. Eventually. But not really, at least, not until she had gotten out all of the dreaded residue of the Dragonfly’s sneeze from her clothes and hair, and Wilson no longer felt threatens by the sheer heat and light that emitted off the molten that stuck to her in clumps and pieces. (She had to use leaves and water. Do you know how hard it is to clean off lava with MORE‌ lava? Very hard.)

Still, there’s bits and pieces that she couldn’t exactly finish out. Her stocking lay out on the drying rack and her shoes settled next to a sleeping Chester. Spoiled thing, or so Wilson’s tells her. His job was to be a portable storage unit and yet Willow was hard set on making sure that the dog-chest was as comfortable and safe as she could possibly make it, even if its to her own expense. He tried telling her that the Permanent Death rule only applied to survivors, not creatures, but she waved him off and told him to feel some compassion for once.

Willow stretches her arms out to the sky and lets out an un-lady like yawn. “I’m going to hit the sack early. I‌t’s basically midnight already anyways.”

Wilson thumbs his place in the journal, (by this point he’s just re-reading pages to see if he’s missed anything, or really, to keep out the boredom. It’s become obsolete, in a sense. But it feels like a part of him, so he keeps it. Just in case.) and flicks up his wrists. The firestarter squints at the watch around his wrist, a little tool she doesn’t see him use often. “You have another hour and six minutes until nightfall.” He looks up. “Your internal clock is skewed.”

“Yeah, well. That’s you’re fault for making me stay up through the night all the time.” She yawns again, this time smaller, and shuffles her way into the entrance of the tent. “Come hang out in here with me instead.”

Wilson nearly has a sneer on his face. “Absolutely not.”

“Come ON!” She’s urges. “It can’t be THAT bad. I’m so tired of having to stay up all night or sleeping in the fire pit. Fire’s great but do you really think that rocks are comfortable to sleep on? You can read that thing in here-”

“Why are you so insistent?” He flips the book closed and it disappears to wherever he puts the damned thing. She doesn’t follow where he stashes it, amber locking with white eyes as both firestarter and king stare down. “There is absolutely no good reason as to why I should go in there.”

Willow falters, her brows creasing together and a hand coming to pull at the pigtails that were threatening to fall out of the bands. “Just break the rules. You break them all the time. Just do it again.”

His hands are already furled into a ball, so it’s not unsurprising when he feels the tips of his claws dig into his palm. The sting is a welcome feeling though, as it brings him back to attention, and his mind away from approaching intensity that night brings now. A powerful feeling.  A divine, hive, connected feeling to the Constant and all of it’s inhabitants, living or dead. Shadows or not. That connection still exists in the tent, but the rules sever ties, and the something as simple as a draped piece of cloth could be a game changer. “This is different, Willow.”

“Doesn’t make sense.” She means for it to come out as a mummer, but it floods out of her mouth in full snide. “You can’t just cherry-pick what rules to break and what to keep. And this!-” She tugs on the tent’s cloth. “This is a fucking blanket held up by a couple of sticks. What kind of threat is that to you?”

“I _am_ the threat and if you had any sort of preservation you’d stop being reckless and leave the questions and experimentation to _me_!”

Willow goes quiet. Chester has stopped snoring. The audience of shadows are here. They’re listening.

Taking a deep breath, an odd motion when his lungs don’t need it, Wilson feels an odd shudder go through his form as words acclimate in his brain but nothing ever seems to come out right. “Listen. I…I’m….” Again, he searches for the words in what he’s allowed to say and what to say what he means.

Willow does not interrupt when he trials off, silent on her side. Her mouth curled into a thin line and face etched into a expression that can only be described as determination. The king may have claws and teeth, but Willow’s eyes were a sharper glare.

Wilson straightens his posture. “I’m-”

“I think you’re just a puppet.” Willow’s voice is a whisper.  A whisper louder than all the others, and it’s angry.

His throat goes dry. The audience goes quiet. “How?”

“If you’re not making all of the rules, someone is. And no offense, but I’m not dumb. You start breaking the rules, and they start breaking you.” She starts again, eyes set solely on him. The shadows know that she cannot see them, but she will not be safe for much longer. “This is all a game to them. They’re playing you, Wilson.”

No, no. He disagreed with them on a few things. Many things, even. They were advisers. An audience.  A kingdom. He was their king. Their _King_. The pain he feels comes with the power. The responsibility he has to the Constant comes with shadows, it gives him time. Time and power that he needs. He could be a masterful scientist, all he’s ever wanted. All the recognition he’ll ever need are the voices and shadows that creep in and out of the dark with him. He’s found a place where he belongs, they’ve accepted him. They follow him. She should follow him. She’s the pawn. Doesn’t she understand what he went though to get to this point? To handle this control? The immense effort it takes to run a place as big as this, in all of it’s levels and inner workings and little things no other human being could even imagine‌? She has no respect for him, for the trouble he went through-

Wilson blanks. The voice monologue in his ear tunes out.

_Why **did** he take up the throne?_

The shadows bicker among themselves. It is not a memory he is allowed to keep.

“Wilson?”

The King blinks away bleary eyes, dully notes the taste of fuel rising in the back of his throat and comes back to the present to see Willow’s hand outstretched to him. She has a warm smile on her face, the brightest thing to see in a world thats hazy and lack of color, full of dark shadows and too many teeth and eyes pointed in his direction that his mind finds no other option than to lock onto that and to drift out yet _another_  trance.

“Truce? I’d rather not go to bed mad at you.” She hoists up her hand again. “And I’m sorry for yelling at you. And calling you a Melon head. Again.”

The shenanigans of the day are a better thought to linger on than the occurrences at night, so Wilson locks hands with her and musters up the most neutral face that he could. Smiling was improbable at the moment, and he needed to finish what he was saying before. “Willow-”

He smile drops and her hand closes around his wrist and the other lunges out for his tie, grabbing hold and using all of her body weight and then some to pull him forwards. She’s smaller than him, and he’s stronger as king, but By the love of Science and Willow’s impeccable timing that Wilson is so _out-of-it_ that it works.

It’s an awkward tumble, quite literally being shoved inside such a confide space like that. Wilson’s back hits the hard ground and his eyes are scrunched closed, thought he doesn’t need them to be open to feel Willow dig an elbow into his chest and the connection has been cut.

The connection has been severed. He can’t feel them directly, but he can feel everything else. Everything amplified. The sound of labored breathing. How cold it was when he shouldn’t feel it at all. Her heartbeat. His orders. His task. His job.

It’s dark in the tent.

“See? Wasn’t so bad? You’re not burning alive!” She sounds triumphant, not on top of him but not allowing him to dash away either. “You made it sound as if getting in here was gonna kill one of us!”

She’s lets out a sigh, stops, and holds her breath. The arm pinning him down goes ridged, and the feeling of something pricking her skin to blood welts makes her hiss.

Bright red eyes glow and cast that same color back onto her face.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [candlelight, cold blood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17943641) by [nightlight_has_regrets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightlight_has_regrets/pseuds/nightlight_has_regrets)




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